Metamorphosis
by Doctor Harley Quinn
Summary: Emma Vane is in witness protection. This doesn't matter. [Pastimes 3/4]
1. i

**Metamorphosis**

* * *

 **I**

As far as government programs go, witness protection isn't so bad.

It'd be different if I took it seriously. If I took it seriously, then I'd have certain complaints—for instance, the fact that despite Jim Gordon's dogged efforts, my case was consistently swatted aside by whoever is in charge of the federal program, meaning that I stayed in the hands of the state, and at the end of it all, was relocated a mere hour upstate from Gotham City, still in easy reach of the danger.

Fortunately, I _don't_ take it too seriously—and by that, I don't mean that I'm walking around telling people that I'm in witness protection, going by my real name, or otherwise treating it like a big joke. Gordon put me here because it was the best way he could manage to protect me, and I'm not so much of an asshole that I'm going to take his hard work for granted. The issue isn't that I don't appreciate the state's protection—it's that I just don't think it's going to work in the long run. I know the man they're trying to protect me from, the domestic terrorist-slash-terrifying force of nature known only as the Joker, and I know that if he wants to find me, he will. It's as simple as that.

You'd think that sense of inevitability would be unsettling at best, paralyzing at worst. It's not. Sure, I know I _should_ be scared, especially given that at the conclusion of our last meeting I shot him in the knee and explicitly dared him to come after me again, but prolonged exposure to the Joker seems to have permanently addled me.

No, _addled_ is the wrong word. It makes it sound like I regard the changes I've experienced as negative ones. The truth is the opposite. I'll say one thing: being abducted by the Joker and toted around like a favored pet as he wages his personal war against Gotham City certainly helps you cut the fat, so to speak. Mind, I'm not necessarily saying that he deserves any credit for my personal journey—he may have been the catalyst that inspired it, but given that he seemed to be doing his utmost to rip me apart and turn me against myself the whole time, it certainly wasn't his intention that I end up wholly on my own side.

He should have taken advantage of my surrender the first time, when I gave up and essentially asked him to end it for me—he should have put a bullet in me then and there, but for all the Joker's superior strengths, he has plenty of flaws, and one of the most damning ones is that he is _greedy_. He wanted to push it further, he wanted the satisfaction of watching me kill _myself_ , and there was the fatal flaw in his plan. He thought the only way for me to go was further down, but he underestimated me: somehow, in the time between asking him to kill me and getting my hands on a gun, I'd grown so sick of being jerked around by him that I'd changed my mind. I chose myself, if only because I knew he was betting on me being too tired to do it anymore, and I'd promised myself that I wasn't going to let him turn me against myself again.

I didn't realize it at the time—at the time, it was just a "fuck you," an unpleasant surprise for the man who'd been putting me through several levels of hell for so long—but the choice was a significant one. After the dust settled, I was startled to find that the emotional numbness and general languor that pressed down on me constantly in the span between my Joker encounters had evaporated completely, and it didn't take me long to figure out why.

At the bottom of it all, it's about power. Specifically, power over _me._ From the beginning, he held it all—I spent all my time in some state of awareness that at any moment he could drop back in and disrupt my life, which led to an attitude (consciously held or not) of "why bother living it?" Once he _had_ come back, he was able to use my internal division against me: he teased and poked at the parts of me that I was ashamed of, that scared me, or that I didn't understand, threatening to drag them out and expose them, and because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to handle what he showed me about myself, I went along with him so that he wouldn't be provoked into doing it.

In listening to him, in granting credence to his opinions about me, I'd been allowing him to pry my skull open, poke his fingers into my brain and give it a good stir till I was too mixed up to tell up from down. The minute I'd decided to stop letting him turn me against myself, I felt like I could breathe freely for the first time in a year.

The effects of that decision were far-reaching, and the realization of this took a while to hit me. At first, I thought it was just the old numbness that was guiding me through all the inconvenient, invasive days that followed the Christmas fiasco. However, at some point as I waded through the process of testifying against him (recorded separately and submitted into evidence; Gordon personally made sure that I wouldn't have to testify in court), the skeptical glances from police officers and citizens alike, and the crush of reporters that hounded me everywhere I went before Gordon's request for witness protection finally went through and whisked me away from them, I realized that this was far from the truth.

The attention I received after that Christmas vastly outstripped the fuss the press made the first time around—witnesses to Joker violence are a dime a dozen in Gotham City; even the unusual nature of his initial interest in me only prompted a few raised eyebrows and some minor media attention before it faded away, but this was different. By featuring me in one of his cute home videos which he then had broadcast across all of Gotham's news networks, he made the whole city privy to my abduction as it was happening, and when I got out alive and the rumor started that I had shot him to escape, the city went nuts. To the general public, I was a hero.

I could deal with 'hero,' but Gotham doesn't boast the leakiest, most corrupt police department in the United States for nothing, and at some point, someone told the press that I wasn't the Joker's victim, but his accomplice. You can imagine the shitstorm _that_ drummed up.

So there I was, dealing with the harassment of a starkly-divided press (half of which wanted to paint me as some vigilante hero, the other half of which was determined to prove me a villain) on top of all the legal red tape I had to wade through. The old Emma would have been helpless, frozen like a deer in the headlights of all the attention, but something had changed. A whole lifetime of feeling threatened by people en masse (and people in general) melted away. Instead of hiding in my apartment and refusing to expose myself to the crowds outside like I would have done before, I'd throw on hats, scarves, sunglasses (and these only because I knew witness protection was pending and it'd be better if the public wasn't familiar with my face) and pass through them like they weren't even there.

(There was an exception. One reporter tripped me in the process of trying to aggravate a confession out of me. I stumbled, regained my footing, turned around, and laid him out. I busted my hand in the process, and Gordon hadn't been happy with me, but it was all on camera, the guy technically assaulted me and I'd been acting in self-defense, so I was pretty much in the clear. The newspaper the guy worked for made it into a huge story about how I was clearly unhinged, so everybody won.)

This wasn't like the unnatural fearlessness that I'd been suffering the year before. That had been owing to his influence, some unnatural state of emotional stasis in which I was suspended because I was waiting for him to come back. What I'm experiencing now is different—it isn't so much that I'm not afraid as that I've found the strength to be at peace with that fear. Better: I've figured out how to use it as a motivator. These days, I look forward to the pulse of adrenaline I feel as I pitch myself into any remotely frightening situation. It feels good, makes me feel alive, and most of all, it serves as a reminder that I don't need him. Considering that once upon a time I'd been afraid that I'd grown so dependent on him that I wouldn't be able to feel anything unless he prompted it, this feels significant.

There's also the notable fact that this time around, I flat-out dared him to come after me again. It doesn't make that much of a difference in the scheme of things—he'll do what he wants, he always does—but it feels good, having made it clear to him in so many words that I no longer dread his involvement in my life. In fact, a part of me (the same dark, inexplicable little part I would have been ashamed of before all this) is looking forward to it.

So no, I don't take witness protection too seriously. I cooperate just fine—I try my best to answer to my new name, Lilah Carpenter, and I work the job that before would have seemed insurmountable (now, faking interest in my tables seems like the easiest thing in the world). I keep a low profile; I try to make it clear through my actions that I appreciate the work Gordon's done for me here.

(I draw the line at coloring my hair, a suggestion that was bandied about quite a lot at the beginning of all this. If—when—he finds me, it's not going to be because of my hair, and I'm attached to my natural copper shade. I make up for my concession to vanity by wearing a lot of scarves and hats when I'm in public.)

In deciding where to relocate me, they'd weighed the risks of placing me in a busy neighborhood, where I was more likely to be recognized, against the risks of placing me somewhere a little more isolated, where there'd be no one around to help if something did happen. They seemed to make a decision pretty easily—my face had been all over the news for the past few months, and if the Joker came after me, it's not like having neighbors would improve my situation any. They ended up placing me in an old farmhouse a few miles outside town—I gathered that the previous owner had gone under and sold their land to the farm that bordered them, which leaves me surrounded by corn and… not much else.

It's been surprisingly good. Life in the city is crowded enough as it is; after spending months under scrutiny, the isolation out here is a welcome relief. Add to that the fact that I grew up in a place like this, quiet and flat and lonely, and I'm more comfortable than I have been in a long time.

The Joker escaped Arkham two weeks after he was committed, by the way, two weeks after they moved me up here. I wasn't surprised, though the marshals assigned to keep an eye on me seemed to be (again, they're state marshals, not local to Gotham—otherwise they'd realize that this isn't that unusual an occurrence). For a couple of weeks, they amped up the security on me—police checking in what felt like every five minutes, to the point that they actually risked exposing me (my coworkers at the restaurant commented on how often they were seeing cop cars, and the marshals' unmarked cars loitering in my driveway were hardly inconspicuous). Time passed, the Joker busied himself causing trouble in Gotham, and eventually, the police attention on me eased off as they figured there was no threat.

I know better, he's done this before, but I'm not going to say anything to the cops. I refuse to do anything to try to either prevent or encourage him to come to me. Things will happen as they happen.

It's mid-September now, and it's been a beautiful month. The whole year has been unusually clear and mild, actually, at least once the ice thawed, as if someone up there's trying to make up for the miserable winter. I've been spending a lot of time outside as a result—first at the shooting range a few minutes away, practicing so that I could get licensed to own a gun (which I did, and do, to the marshals' approval), but lately it's been gardening. I'm not much of a green thumb, but being outside feels good now that I'm away from the city, so I've stuck at it.

I spend my evenings at least in part out on the porch overlooking the long, cornfield-lined drive that leads up to the house, usually with a book and a drink or two, always with my SIG P220 beside me. Part of me is enjoying the weather. The other part of me is waiting—for him, for news from the cops, for anything, really. I don't agonize over it, I'm neither dreading nor anticipating any news or disruption, but given the fact that I pretty much issued the Joker a standing invitation, it seems prudent to make sure I don't get caught off-guard.

It's about 7 PM, and the sun has just disappeared, but the twilight is still bright enough for me to read by. I'm sitting on the porch as usual, chair tilted back, booted feet braced against the porch railing, working through my second beer, the empty bottle of the first and my loaded gun sitting on the table just beside me.

About two minutes ago, I started hearing the distant rumble of a motor. I ignored it at first, because it's not that unusual; I _do_ have neighbors out here even if I don't really see them—but it's been getting louder, closer, so I sit up a little straighter and watch. It's not long before a car appears at the end of the driveway.

I bring my feet down to the porch with a clunk, righting myself and taking hold of my pistol in one move. Cautiously, I get up, standing at the railing and waiting for the car to get closer.

It's not a cop car, and it doesn't look like any of the cars my marshals use, either. It could be some lost citizen, using my driveway to turn around and head back to town like a sane person, but I'm not that lucky. It seems to take forever to reach the end of the drive, where it comes to a too-abrupt stop a few feet away from the porch where I'm standing. The dark tint on the windows combined with the too-dim light keeps me from seeing inside, but the inconvenience is short-lived—the driver-side door opens, and someone steps out.

And… I have no idea who this guy is. He's not wearing clown makeup, but that's hardly reassuring—he's huge, well over six feet and built broad besides, bald, sporting a brown goatee I associate more with bikers and convicts than anyone I might want on my property. He slams the car door and stares at me, and the hungry expression on his face does little to reassure me.

The sudden spike of fear I feel at the sight of him comes with a welcome pulse of adrenaline that has me lifting the gun, bringing my spare hand up to hold it steady as I take aim directly in the center of his chest. Pitching my voice to carry, I say, "How 'bout you tell me exactly why you're here or head back the way you came, like, _now_?"

The sight of the weapon doesn't seem to faze him, but before he can really react, the passenger door opens and the car's second occupant steps out.

It takes me a second to recognize him. The face paint is missing—standard for when he has to travel by car, I've found—but more than that, he's dressed strangely. Not just strangely: he's wearing the standard uniform issued to members of Gotham's PD, the stiff shirt unbuttoned all the way, hanging open over a white t-shirt. There's a smear of browning blood across his forehead, and as he climbs out of the car, he staggers, catching himself by propping an elbow against the top of the open car door. Even as he regains his balance, though, even staring down the barrel of my gun, he's flashing a yellowed grin at me.

And I'm more than a little surprised that the first thing to bubble up out of my throat and past my lips is a laugh. The Joker cocks his head, still grinning, wordlessly inquiring _what's so funny,_ and I find myself asking, "Who'd you piss off _this_ time?"

He pretends to consider the question even as he steps back with some trouble and slams the car door shut. "You know, Em, an easier question to _answer_ might be 'who _didn't_ I piss off?'"

I snort. _Well, at least he's not fucking around and playing innocent._ Now that the majority of him is no longer hidden from my view, I can see the cause of his limited mobility—there's a big, dark bloodstain covering his right thigh, leaking all the way down his leg, still wet. This might be enough to make me lower the gun on its own, but there's still the matter of the hulking stranger.

I make the concession of training my gun on _him_ instead, but other than glancing to make sure he's staying where he stands, my attention is on the Joker. "Who's this?"

He glances over at his companion as if he'd forgotten about him. "Uh… that's Victor," he says, pressing a hand to his injured leg and making his way towards the porch, towards me. "He helped me out of a jam. I'm returning the favor."

I frown a little—I try to hold it back, but I can feel my forehead creasing into little lines as I look again at this Victor guy. He's watching me, chin tilted slightly down, and at some point, he put on a smile that's frankly fucking creepy. Okay, he's weird and unsettling—that's not the source of my concern, really, not as long as the _Joker's_ around. I'm more stuck on the fact that the Joker doesn't _return_ _favors,_ not in any real sense. Even leaving aside the fact that a genuine code of honor is a foreign concept to him—swapping favors puts him on equal footing with whoever he's deigning to trade with. The Joker doesn't like being on equal footing with _anyone._

Something's up, but now doesn't seem to be the best time to discuss it, not with Victor standing there staring. Instead, I move to the top of the steps, reaching them right as the Joker reaches the bottom. He pauses, I put my hands on my hips, gun angled ever-so-casually in his direction, and we regard one another for a moment. At length, arching a taunting eyebrow, he asks, "A _gun_ , Em? Does this mean you're _not_ happy to see me?"

"Of course I'm happy to see you," I say, and I get the rare satisfaction of seeing his eyebrows twitch in what looks like surprise. The movement is followed closely by a glint in his eyes, a self-satisfied one that I don't entirely like, so before he can get too cocky I add, "That doesn't mean for a second that I've forgotten the risk that being around you entails, hence the gun—and for the record, _you're_ taking a risk in being around _me,_ as well. Aside from, y'know, _everything else_ , don't you think Batman's learned from his mistakes? You go conspicuously dark after some public police brawl or whatever, what, you don't think he's going to consider the possibility that you're _here_?"

He winces, lifting his free hand to wave away my fears like smoke before bringing it down on the railing and pulling himself up one step, then another. "Give me some _credit,_ " he says as he goes. "This little ruckus was… mm, something of a _private_ dispute. Trust me. No one even knows I'm not in the city."

 _Trust you? Not likely,_ I think, wearing my skepticism full on my face as I watch him ascend another step. As he glances at me to see if I'm buying it, I say, " _No one_?" My tone asks _are you sure?_

He pauses, eyes widening in that pretense of innocence he likes to paste on ( _there it is_ ). "Cross my heart. Er—that is, no one except for _him,_ " he tacks on as an afterthought, jerking his head towards Victor, who has wisely remained beside the car.

He moves one more time and now he's on the step just below me, though due to our height difference, I'm still left looking up at him. I close my eyes, just for a second, absorbing the fact that just like that, I've been pitched (or dragged) into his path again, and, like always, my life is about to change. I'd be lying to myself if I said there isn't a part of me that wants this, and I don't do that anymore. The part of me that _doesn't_ want it always sensed that it was inevitable, so it's not kicking up too much of a ruckus, which is good—less internal conflict to deal with.

I can smell him, that harsh, smoky smell that reminds me of destruction. I open my eyes, meeting his gaze for a moment before he drops it, training his stare instead on the curls that have fallen over my shoulders, and he reaches up idly to pet them, fingers casually brushing the side of my neck in the process. I react to the touch without meaning to, pulling in a quick, stuttering gasp of air, and he lifts his eyes to meet mine knowingly for a second before he lowers them again.

"So," he says lowly, pulling one of my curls taut before winding it around his finger, "… _pretty_ please. Can we stay?"

I respond to his coy avoidance of my gaze by refusing to look away from his face. "The fact that you're bothering to ask tells me you already know you'll get the answer you want," I tell him, a bit of wryness creeping into my tone despite my resolution to keep it harsh and unyielding.

He glances up again, and I see that wicked light in his eyes. He tugs on the curl, a bit too hard for it to count as a caress, and when I flinch, he turns to Victor and jerks his head towards the house, signaling the all clear. As Victor goes into the back of the vehicle to gather whatever it is they brought with them, the Joker turns back to me.

"Be a doll and gimme a hand, will ya, Em? There's enough shrapnel in my leg to take down a dozen war photographers."

* * *

 **A/N** \- Welcome (finally) to part 3 of the Pastimes series! It's been a small eternity since the end of Part 2 and that's... kind of unconscionable. Please accept my apology for the delay, I believe I am the _slowest_ fic writer on the planet. But we're here now!

I'm still working on the editing process, trying to make things cohesive. I plan to have chapter two up in a week or so- chapters will also get gradually longer as I lose control over the process, lol. If you're still here with me after such a long break, drop me a line, I'd be thrilled to hear from you!


	2. ii

**II**

He's probably exaggerating the severity of his injury, given that he's still on his feet and his femoral artery is intact. Still, there's quite a bit of blood, and it's still going steadily, if the shoe-shaped prints left behind on the wood floor are any indication. I don't ask him for details right away, just let him hook his arm around my shoulders and lean on me as I help him through the house. I limit my communication to the necessary, "Can you manage the stairs?", and when he confirms that he can, I occupy myself by helping him up to the master bath, which is better equipped for this sort of thing than the rest of the house (which is to say, still not very well-equipped at all).

As we go, I'm assessing myself, assessing him, taking stock of the situation and trying to figure out how it'll all fall this time, as is like me when I get a quiet (quieter) moment. So far, this all very… chummy, which I don't trust for a second. Sure, I'm pleased to see him, and I suspect that he's pretty happy to see me, too, but the war is still on; this little truce could end at any time, so I stay on-guard.

We're at the top of the staircase when Victor makes it inside, slamming the door noisily behind him and consequently reminding me of his presence. I glance over my shoulder with a frown to find him peering up at us with that creepy, too-knowing smile even as he moves towards the living area, toting the two big canvas bags he brought in with him. I don't like him, not at all, and as soon as we're in the hallway leading to my room and clear of the downstairs line of sight, I pull the Joker to the side, bracing his back against the wall so I can look him in the eye.

He blinks owlishly down at me, as if he's surprised to see me there and can't possibly imagine what I might want, and I cut through the bullshit before it can start, pitching my voice so that it'll only reach him: "What's the deal with this Victor guy?"

"Vicky?" he says, not bothering to lower his voice in turn and looking vaguely confused. "He's harmless."

I stare at him in disbelief. "Do you know what that word _means_?"

He moves fast for someone nursing a shitload of blood loss, hand whipping up like a striking rattlesnake and catching me painfully by the throat, backing me up until I hit the opposite wall with a jarring thump. I reach up, curling my fingers around his wrist and testing to see if I can budge him, but it's like trying to bend iron. I keep my palm clasped around his wrist but stop trying to make him let me go, instead glancing up at him for my next cue.

His eyes are narrowed unpleasantly, lips curved in a nasty smile that somehow doesn't look all that amused. Keeping his grip tight enough to prevent me from going anywhere but not tight enough to strangle—not yet, anyway—he says clearly, "You _testified_ against me."

"We're having that discussion _right now_?" I ask, surprise loosening my tongue, and, lips pursed in displeased impatience, he jerks me forward a few inches before slamming me back again, hard enough to make me see a little explosion of white light for a split second.

My adrenaline spikes, and I laugh. That stops him cold, and though his fingers tighten along the sides of my neck, he doesn't retaliate, instead peering at me like he's searching for some answer to the behavior that, before, I would only have exhibited when I was pushed past the breaking point—definitely not this early in the game, at any rate. I don't blame him for being confused. He hasn't been with me, watching me settle into myself over the past few months—he has some catching up to do.

I'm sure in time he'll figure it out on his own. I look him in the eye and say, " _Of course_ I testified against you. Don't tell me you're surprised."

True to form, the Joker adapts, accepting my unforeseen honesty for the time being. "Well," he says, consulting the ceiling as if it'll give him inspiration for his next words—which apparently it does, because in the next second he's pinning me with his stare again, leaning earnestly into my face, "I gotta say, I was a little _disappointed_. I mean, not only did you _squeal_ on me, but you didn't have the guts to do it to my face. Think of how I _felt_. Not only do I have to hear you talk about our _private_ life in _public_ … but I don't even get to _look_ at you while you _do_ it." He squints disapprovingly at me. "And here I thought I meant _more_ to you."

I'm grinning at him—or maybe just baring my teeth; it's hard to tell at this point. As he finishes, I lift my chin, getting free of as much of his touch as possible, and I'm speaking before silence can close in: "Oh, _think about it_. I mean, shit, it's a miracle I'm not in prison right now—and part of the reason for that is that I _played my part_. If I'd poked one toe out of the role of 'trauma-stricken Joker hostage,' they'd be all over my ass, and let me make one thing _very_ clear: I am _not_ going to jail for you. So, yeah, when Gordon asked me to, I fucking _sang_ , and I did it privately, because what victim do _you_ know who would choose to risk facing _you_ on the stand when given another option? It wasn't personal. I just did what I had to do. I feel like you of all people should appreciate that, especially since it's coming from _me_."

At this, he finally draws back some, and to my surprise, I see something like affection glittering in his eyes—or the closest he can get to it, anyway. _Must be the blood loss._ Still, it makes me feel less weird about the fact that I find myself rubbing his wrist idly, half a caress and half a reminder that he has yet to let go of my throat. "And anyway," I say, sensing that I've got a rare window for negotiation here, "you're here now, aren't you? You see me sneaking off, trying to make a phone call? Hell, I had a _gun_ on you two minutes ago, and I didn't take the shot. I may not strictly be on _your_ side, but I think it's obvious that I'm not out to get you, either. Now will you let go of me and let me take a look at your leg, please? You're bleeding like a stuck pig and it's ruining my floor."

He laughs, just a short, wheezy huff, and finally, maybe exaggerating the motion a bit, he uncurls his fingers from my throat. "You know, that's a little forward," he tells me after appearing to consider the request for a moment.

Even though I get the feeling I'm treading on thin ice, I can't stop the sly grin from slipping over my face. "Oh, come on, baby," I say, putting on a bit of a whine, "we're _way_ past the first date."

He snorts at that, though I kind of get the feeling he didn't mean to, going by the way he turns away from me immediately, limping down the hall without my assistance. Quelling the urge to keep teasing him, because I'm not quite at the point of wanting to commit suicide via Joker again, not yet, I follow at a safe pace or two behind him—close enough to catch him if he needs it, but far enough to get quickly out of range should he turn on me again.

He makes it just fine on his own, of course, though it's slower going than it usually would be and he seems to be leaning on the wall an awful lot. I pause in the bedroom doorway, and as he makes his way to the open door of the bathroom just beyond, I ask, "Er—just so we're on the same page: do you _want_ me here?"

He pauses, hand braced against the wall, and turns his head to look at me curiously over his shoulder. I go on: "Because I want to help, but I'd rather not get slapped across the room because you think I'm, I don't know, _hovering_. Say the word, I'll just wait for you out here."

He turns properly then, feet scuffing wetly on the bloodied floor as he puts his back to the wall and lets his head loll lazily towards me. There's nothing lazy about his eyes, though: they're hard and bright, and even as he flashes his usual carelessly threatening grin, I can hear the suspicion in his voice as he says, "Well, aren't _you_ accommodating?"

I hike my shoulders up defensively. "You're unpredictable on a _good_ day. Add a handful of shrapnel and considerable blood loss to the mix, and I don't really like my chances. I realize trying to get a straight answer out of you is like, I don't know, trying to get _Batman_ to crack a smile, but hell, if it spares me a bit of unnecessary injury, I'm gonna make the effort."

"And _bold_ ," he says, cocking his head. I can hear a whole swarm of unspoken questions hiding behind the words.

I just give him a hard smile. "Might as well take advantage of your limited mobility while it lasts," I say, intentionally misreading the comment as a threat. "You start towards me because you don't like what I said, I'm out of here before you can take more than a step." _Of course, that would put me downstairs, sharing space with that creep, and I would rather not,_ I think, but I don't find it necessary to add that little bit.

Surprisingly enough, he doesn't seem to feel the need to call my bluff. He just watches me through narrowed eyes for a moment, just long enough for the silence to get a touch uncomfortable, then he clicks his tongue and straightens up, turning back to the bathroom. "O _kay_. Come on, then, Em. Let's see how well you play _nursemaid._ "

I hesitate for a second as he goes into the bathroom, but it doesn't last for long. Sure, I still don't trust him not to brain me on the sink on a whim, but I'd asked for some indication that he wants me around, and he gave it to me. At any rate, as foolish as it is, I really am worried. He's leaving enough blood on the floor to cause concern, and I don't want him dead. Not at the moment, anyway.

I go after him, stopping in the doorway and switching on the light that he's neglected. He's in the process of seating himself heavily on the closed toilet, and, completely ignoring me, he begins the slow and, I imagine, painful process of peeling off his bloodied pants. It takes him some time, but I just stand witness in the doorway as he inches them down from bloodied boxers (I'll admit I'd thought of him as more of a commando guy, though I'm perfectly happy to be wrong, given that that could make this situation weirder than it already is) and then, carefully, works them around his damaged thigh.

He gets them down past the knees and apparently decides that's good enough, leaning back against the tank with a short exhale. I'm staring at the wounded area, which is better than I expected in terms of major injury, but worse in terms of how it _looks_. There are small flecks of metal stuck in his bloodied leg, none of which look particularly dangerous—except for one, a big piece jutting out maybe an inch from his inner thigh, jagged and glistening red. I can see that most of the blood has coming from that particular wound, and something about the slow, persistent ooze pushing out around the metal and slipping down his leg is sickening.

I look up and meet his eyes, and before he can fire off some smartass comment about liking what I see, I beat him to it: "Living a little more dangerously than usual, are you? That piece got kind of… _close_."

He doesn't answer, just gives me a grin, but it's… wrong, somehow, and I'm suddenly registering how gray his unpainted face looks, noticing the unusually deep bags under his eyes. He looks exhausted, and I'm a little surprised, because I'm used to the Joker being superhuman, laughing off injuries and explosions that would flatten any normal man and never stopping, never resting until he does what he set out to do (or is finally immobilized long enough for someone to force him into a straitjacket). Of course, I know he's human, I know that he must _sometimes_ rest and feel his injuries and stop pretending, but it takes me off-guard that he's doing it in front of _me_.

Then his eyes get a hard, black light in them and the grin broadens, and whatever I'd seen is gone completely. It's time to get to business, anyway. I step into the room, stooping to access the cabinet under the sink, the washcloths stored there, as I ask him, "What would you like me to do?"

"Well, what are you _offering_?" he asks, apparently not too weak to be his usual insinuating self, and I snort as I grab a stack of cloths.

"Medical assistance."

" _Bo_ -ring," he pronounces lazily. I shoot him a sideways look, possibly a fonder one than I intend to, and rise to my feet. He moves simultaneously, dragging himself up a little straighter, and sighs as though he's disappointed before adding, "Well, then, uh—I _guess_ you could take a crack at getting this shit out of my leg."

In the middle of washing my hands, I stop moving. I hadn't expected that, and after a second spent processing, I turn my head to look suspiciously at him, a look that he meets with wide, guileless eyes, an expression which, on his face, would prompt even the most naïve to mistrust. "Funny."

"No, really. I wanna see what you've got." One of his eyebrows darts up, and he tilts his head at me. "Unless you're _chicken_."

 _Oh, great, we've reverted to grade school,_ I think, but it's not like I'm going to pass up the opportunity to put him through a little extra pain just to show him I'm above the childish dare, so I retrieve tweezers from the cabinet above and click them at him. "I'm ready to dig."

He gestures lazily at me, waving me over, and I collect everything before I lose my nerve, taking the cloths and tweezers and moving towards him. The bathroom is a master, but still a bathroom, so it's not exactly roomy, and I end up kneeling just in front of where he sits, my back to the wall. It's the most practical position for what I need to do, but I'm well aware of how it looks, subservient at best and compromising at worst, so I deliberately don't look up at him, knowing that the doubtless-smug look on his face might tempt me to inflict more pain than is strictly necessary throughout the process. I focus instead on the work.

It takes me a second to get started, because embarrassingly, my hands are shaking. This seems odd after the past few months of confidence, of steadiness, but I'm not going to agonize over it. The Joker's reappearance in my life always shakes things up, always marks a change in what I consider my "normal" behavior (or altered behavior that has _become_ normal by the time he deigns to make another appearance), and if my hands are trembling a little and my heart is beating fast, it's hardly unusual given that I'm having to abruptly re-adjust to his proximity.

I reach out and grip his knee with one hand, ostensibly to hold his leg still while I work, more truthfully to steady my hand. He doesn't react, not a move, not a sound, so I wield the tweezers with my other hand and go to work.

It's not difficult. He proves a stoic patient, never flinching as I pick little bit of metal after painful little bit of metal out of his flesh, pointedly ignoring the problem piece as I go over the rest of the afflicted area and pick out every last bit of the smaller shrapnel.

I'm running out of time fast, though, and as I tap the last small piece free of the tweezers, I find that my nerves are climbing up into my throat, giving me second thoughts about removing that big, ugly piece. As I scan his legs to make sure I haven't missed anything, I see a welcome distraction.

More gently than perhaps is warranted, I reach out to the knee of the other leg, tracing the livid, ugly scar there with a fingertip. "You know, if you were going for symmetry, your aim was off," I say wryly, finally looking up at him. I'm aware that reminding him of our last encounter—of the fact that I very much _shot_ him the last time we met—is unwise, but in some way, I'm hoping that he'll get cranky about it, bite my head off and throw me out and take that big piece out of his leg on his own.

He's staring intently at me, likely has been from the moment I started, and despite the fact that I've seen it before, I'm still a little startled by how soft his eyes look when they aren't rimmed thickly with that black paint, rich brown and long-lashed instead of the narrow points of black, shining out from deeper pits of black. My heart skips treacherously, the way it's apt to do when I'm reminded suddenly that he's only a man, if a wicked one, and I brace myself right away for him to do or say something horrible, to reclaim his status as some sort of devil of chaos, but he just crinkles those eyes at me and says, knowingly, " _You're_ putting off the hard par _t_."

He's damn right I am, but now that he's called me out, I can't continue. I put the tweezers on the ground—they're too small for this work. My hands, previously steadied by being occupied, start shaking again, and I try to keep him from noticing and mocking by keeping them in motion, reaching down for a washcloth and wrapping it carefully around my hand in preparation, because this is going to get messy and a slip could spell disaster.

For once, the Joker is keeping quiet, and I'm not sure whether or not I'm glad of it—his vicious teasing could annoy me enough that I'm not nervous about this, or at the least, it could _distract_ me from those nerves. He's silent, though, and because delaying this will only prolong this strangeness, I reach up and carefully, very carefully take hold of the piece sticking out of his leg. Once I have it in my grip, I can't resist looking up at him—seeking permission, hoping for a few words of advice, I don't know.

He's looking down at me, head cocked, and he's got this strange little smile playing around his mouth. I can't tell if it's a threat or a dare. I do know that I'm struck with a sudden, powerful urge to push instead of pull, drive that shard further into his leg, maybe give it a good twist to see if I can't find the artery and send the rest of his blood spraying out over the painted plaster and cheap linoleum of the master bathroom. Maybe he'll even get a shot in before he bleeds out, produce one of the billion blades he carries on his person, use it to tear open my throat and take me down with him. My breath hitches at the image, which I find neither pleasing nor repugnant so much as… appropriate.

His eyes hold mine, and even without the paint, they seem blacker than they were a moment ago. I swear, he knows exactly what's going through my mind, and it doesn't bother him, much less frighten him.

I drop my eyes. Gently, ever so gently, I start the delicate process of pulling the metal out of his leg. It's not as deep as I feared. A few seconds of carefully working it free from the blood that _has_ managed to coagulate around it, and it slides out, neat as can be. He lets loose a sound as it comes free, not so much a groan as a throaty sort of exhale, the only noise he's made in concession to the painful procedure this whole time.

The shrapnel is followed by a fresh pulse of blood. I shake the metal out to the floor, where it falls with a silvery clatter. Taking the cloth, I press it against the open wound, then grab one of his hands and press it to the spot. "Hold that there," I say; "I've got to get something to clean you up."

He doesn't say anything, just leaves his hand where I put it and tracks me with his eyes as I stand and go to the sink, turning the tap to warm. I've heard time and time again that alcohol and hydrogen peroxide and other over-the-counter alternatives do more harm than good when it comes to disinfecting wounds small or large, that soap and water is the safest, gentlest way to ward off infection, so I pump some soap into the cup, fill it with warm water, then wet a fresh cloth and smear more soap across its surface. I'm back and kneeling in front of him after just a few seconds.

"Here," I say, moving his hand and the cloth out of the way so that I have access to the area, and after he genially allows me to move him, I start bathing his leg with the wet, soapy cloth, trying to avoid direct contact with the larger open wounds while getting as much of the area around them as I can manage. It's bloody work, and difficult given the range and number of his injuries, but it needs to be done before we bandage him up. Incredible immune system or no, if that leg gets infected, it'll be bad news for him.

I note his arousal almost right away. I'd have to be blind not to, given where I'm working, but I try not to think about it. I'm an adult, I know how this works, and he's getting a fair amount of stimulation near that area—and he's not exactly the type to differentiate between good stimulation and bad, if past experimentation is any evidence (or at least, he finds them equally appealing). Right now seems a bad time to consider the alternative, that he's really getting turned on because I'm causing him pain and fantasizing about doing worse, and I'm doing a perfectly good job of ignoring the possibility when his hand slides down the edge of my jaw, curls around my throat at the base, and tilts my head back, prompting me to look at him.

His eyes are narrowed. He looks suspicious again, or—no, not suspicious. Curious. "You're _different,_ " he says.

Ah. That.

I'm surprised he wants to talk about this so soon, and so directly. Usually, he seems to want to puzzle things out on his own, jabbing and poking until he finds a sore spot that forces me to react. While that's never a particularly fun process for me, I have no intention of spelling out the most recent developments for him. He's always forced me to work hard for even the smallest insight into his own character, and I know the more I let him see, the more weaponry he has against me.

So I raise an eyebrow, and coolly, I say, "People _do_ change. Well—maybe not _you,_ but _I_ certainly haven't been waiting around in stasis for you to show up again so we can pick up right where we left off." He narrows his eyes at me, looking puzzled (or playing at it), and I tilt my head, as close to teasing as I think I can get away with while still keeping my skin. "Is that what you _wanted_?"

His other hand joins the first in cupping my face, and surprise, surprise, there's a little knife between two of the fingers, scraping the shell of my ear. I stare steadily at him even as my heartbeat picks up, the pulse in my neck thrumming at the edge of his hand, and since I'm not getting much done in the way of cleaning his wounds, I figure I might as well get back to work stopping the blood flow, and I drag the wet cloth down to the biggest hole in his leg and press down.

He twitches, not quite a jump, but I was right, the eyes are blacker now. His grip on my face tightens and he pulls, drawing me up high on my knees, craning his head forward so that our eyes are level, and I grip the knee that bears the scar from the bullet I put in him so I can keep my balance.

Once we're where he wants us, he squints one eye at me and says, "Well, ya know… I wouldn't have _minded._ "

His performance is off. As engaged as he's pretending to be, with his body language, his facial expressions, I can tell—he's distracted, trying to figure out how to turn this around on me. I know how quickly his mind works, that I have a window of just a few seconds before he decides what he wants to do, that those few seconds would best be spent backtracking across any unwise words in an effort to stay his hand.

 _Yeah, I don't want to do that right now._ I've been interested for a while to see how this newfound attitude—the confidence, the fearlessness, prompted this time not by the absence of feeling so much as a more complete understanding of the feeling I _have_ —would guide me once he turned up again. On the one hand, he seems particularly adept at turning my world on its head, at changing the way I think and act, and there's no reason to think this encounter will be any different than the ones before it.

But then…

This _does_ feel different. Before, in one way or another, it always felt like I was clinging desperately to solid ground while the wind howled around me and tried to carry me away. This time, I don't care to hold on and fight the forces pushing and pulling at me. This time, I'm willing to let him sweep me away to wherever, because I don't care to fight anymore. What's there to care _about_ , after all? Certainly not whether I live or die, and the fact that I don't particularly _want_ to do either gives me some leverage, because there's nothing he can really hold hostage anymore.

Once he figures that out, however, I'm sure he'll set to work _giving_ me something to care about, just so he can take it away. That's his style, and while I'm sure I'll be fully engaged (for better or worse) in whatever he comes up with, he certainly has been taking the lead for quite some time now. Given that _he's_ not filling the silence, I take it upon myself:

"May I ask you a question?"

He seems to almost have to pull himself back from wherever he's gone. His eyes have been fixed on mine the whole time, but they'd gone glassy, distant, and it's fascinating, watching the change in them when I ask my question, how quickly they return to life. He senses that my request signifies me going on the offensive—of course he does; he's injured and off his game but he's not dead, not yet, and he moves seamlessly to adapt, hands slipping down from my face to my shoulders and then closing around my arms, hard enough that it hurts and I won't be able to break away without it hurting worse (that's all right, I'm comfortable kneeling, hand on his knee for balance, other hand still holding fast and applying pressure to his bleeding leg, ready to jab my fingers in harder, should the occasion call for it).

Apparently satisfied with this arrangement, he smiles in my face. "Well, you know me, Emma. I'm an _open book._ "

I choke back a laugh at the flat-out lie, and his grin widens, pushing the scar tissue into knotty, dark bunches at the edges of his face. I smile back at him, feeling a rush of affection that's frankly ridiculous, given that it's directed towards a man I _shot_ the last time I saw him, and I ask, "When did you first know that you wanted me?"

* * *

 **A/N** \- Just wanted to say y'all are incredible. I saw a bunch of old familiar faces (usernames? lol) along with some new ones and I'm touched at the enthusiasm everyone has shown. My heartfelt thanks to everyone for their attention and feedback- I thrive on it!

My plan is to update on Saturday nights (CT, anyway- some of y'all are in different countries, so it'd probably be more like Sunday morning for you) as long as I'm not out of town or otherwise unable to get to a computer. Next: Em and the Joker continue their discussion; she finds out a bit more about Victor. Things are getting tense fast. Comments, questions, and feedback kill me in the best way possible. Thank you for reading!


	3. iii

**III**

" _When did you first know that you wanted me?"_

The devil-may-care smile doesn't budge. His hands tighten, though, enough that I can hear his rough skin creaking against mine and feel the cutting pressure that signifies bruises to follow. The knife has followed his hand down from my face to my arm, and I feel the cold metal touch my skin, but he's not going to cut me, not yet, because that would be yielding a point to me. He's going to have to come at this with his words if he wants to convince me that—what? That I'm flattering myself? That he doesn't give a damn about me?

 _Please._ I know full well that confronting him with this might result in him killing me, just to prove that he _doesn't_ want me, but I don't care. I know he _does_ on some level. If he goes to the extreme of killing me, it just means I've touched a nerve in broaching the subject. If he doesn't, all the better. I win either way.

"That's a _loaded question,_ Emma," is all he says, sounding pensive, and I'm so used to him _pretending_ to think things through (all the while having figured out his plan up to six steps ahead) that I honestly can't tell if this is real or not. He tends to only use my full name instead of some chummy nickname when he's being about as serious as he gets, but given the subject matter, I don't trust it.

He doesn't want to talk it through. That's okay. "I remember when _I_ realized I wanted _you,_ " I tell him matter-of-factly, looking him right in the eye, even though after all this time it's still hard when he's this close, still sends chills scuttling their way down my spine. "I had a dream. That first night, at your hideout, after you _abducted_ me as a Christmas present—remember that? I don't fully remember what the dream was about—though I'm sure you can imagine—but it kicked me in the ass, told me that the act I'd been putting on was bullshit."

I pause, and my gaze drifts off to the stained wall behind him. "We've kind of discussed this before, haven't we? How it took root earlier than that. Maybe the first time you came to my apartment, or the phone call following that, when I was drunk and you made me tell you I was an orphan. The memory that _really_ sticks out, though, the place I think it really started for me, isn't even reliable because you drugged me to the gills. But I remember waking up in the back of the police cruiser with you. You'd pulled me into your shoulder, I think, had an arm around me, and you were… singing. Or humming, I don't know. I tried to push away, and you hushed me and pulled me back to you. That's very you, isn't it? And very me. You know, to tell the truth, I knew then where this was going to go eventually. I just was so far from ready to admit it."

I've lost myself a little, thinking back to those old days, when I was so terrified and shut off from myself and kept the world so small. _I sure was scrappy for someone who had nothing to fight for._ I shake those cobwebs off and return my gaze, and attention, back to him.

"But that's me. What about you? I mean, did you know you wanted to fuck me that very first time we lay down together? Or was it later, as late as when you kissed me that first time?"

He laughs in my face, loudly and exuberantly enough that spit flecks my cheek and eyebrow. I wait, smiling politely, for him to recover himself, and when he does, it's mid-ragged-howl-of-laughter. "Ohhhh, _Em_ —I think you're the _funniest_ person I know. Besides _me,_ of course."

"Thank you," I say.

"Is this how you've been thinking of us, _really?_ Some great, predestined _love story?_ I mean, _sure,_ I _like_ ya, but… pump the brakes, huh? You'll scare a guy _off_."

"Nobody said _anything_ about love," I tell him. "I'm asking when you knew you _wanted_ me. Different. Way more complicated. Unless you've been… periodically stalking me for a year and a half out of, what, the goodness of your heart?" I scoff. "I know you like to style yourself as some… morally ambiguous benefactor, but you're a busy guy. You work on the grand scale; individuals are personal exceptions. There's only so long you can pretend that this thing between you and me _isn't_ personal before that lie becomes a joke, and not one of your better ones."

The hand not bearing a knife snaps up to grab the back of my head, twining the fingers in the hair there. In my experience, this is the part directly preceding the blunt force trauma to the head, and while I have no particular drive to stay alive, I'd rather not spend the rest of my time with him shaking off a concussion caused by an unfortunate collision with the sink, so quickly, I say, "But hey, you don't want to talk about it, I'm not going to force you. I just want you to be the best _you_ you can _be,_ you know?"

He laughs, and again, I think it's by accident, a little stutter of a chuckle. He recovers quickly, then, peering closely at me, he asks, "You went a little _crazy_ there, huh, Em?"

I beam at him. "Just now, or, y'know, in the interim between hookups with you?"

" _Yes._ "

"If so, you should be happy. Wasn't that your goal? To break me down?" He studies me, looking like he's deciding between a variety of potential answers, and I shrug and smile and shake my hair over my shoulders. "I guess you got it, cause this is what's left."

"Aw," he says, "you _say_ 'what's left' like you're the _remains_ of somethin', Em. But you're not _Frankenstein's monster._ Look at you. You're more _you_ than you've ever been."

"That's sweet," I say. "But ultimately bullshit. Before _you_ marked me, I was just some quiet little corn-fed transplant, making her way in the big city. Ever since I met you, everything that's happened since then—it's got your fingerprints all over it."

He's shaking his head, back and forth, slowly, and I can sense the warning there. Things are about to go bad, I can taste it like copper on the back of my tongue (or maybe that's just his blood, the smell of it saturating the bathroom, filling my mouth and nose and lungs), but I can't pull away from this, don't _want_ to, in truth. I let my expression morph into a cartoonish frown. "What? I thought you'd be glad to hear it."

He leans forward, suddenly so earnest that it's got to be an act. "What, glad to hear you talk yourself _down?_ Ya know, Em, I've never thought of you as a _wilting flower,_ giving away the credit for all _your_ hard work. You've come a _long way._ " His eyes widen, big and sincere as they flit to the side like he's searching for the words to say, and I think _yeah, right_ before they come back to lock onto mine again." _I_ certainly didn't do anything special. Nudged you in the right _direction_ , maybe. But this, _here_ , where you've ended _up?_ That's all you."

I laugh, sort of, just a shaky little exhale through my nose, because that is the biggest load of shit I have ever heard in my life, even from him, but I don't say that out loud, because by now I've learned to save it for the battles I really _feel_ like fighting. Besides, his breath hitches, signifying he's not done.

He raises his eyebrows conspiratorially and he comes forward more, drawing me towards him so that our foreheads rest together and his eyes are fixed on mine. "But you know… if you wanted me to _mark_ you, all you had to do was _ask_ —" and then, again with that impossible speed, he releases my head and snatches up the hand pressed against his leg, and before I can process, before I can do anything other than follow his movements with my eyes, the sharp blade of the knife tears across the thin skin of my palm. I gasp sharply, in startled reaction to the sudden burning pain, but he's not finished: as the blood wells instantly up to the surface of my skin, he uses his knife hand to flip the bloodied washcloth away from the hole in his leg, and, with a distinct air of self-satisfied finality, he presses my bleeding hand to his open wound.

I let out a sound that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob, I honestly don't know which, and I raise my eyes to his. He isn't looking back at me. He's staring instead at our joined flesh, one black brow hitched slightly, almost as though he's vaguely surprised at his own action—surprised, maybe, but not displeased. His hand around my wrist is so tight that I don't even try to pull away. I just wait for him to decide that enough of his blood has made it inside me.

Which he does, after a few more moments. He releases my hand abruptly, practically flinging it back to me, and I'm still so taken off-guard by what just happened that I don't do the sensible thing and scramble back, away from him, out of his reach. Instead, I just sink slowly backwards, sitting on my heels just in front of him and staring at my hand.

The entire surface of it is covered in blood: his, mine, there's little difference anymore, now that it's _in_ me. _He's crossed another line,_ I think faintly; _he's thrown us into new territory again_ —but it's hard to think about that and what that means right now. I imagine I can feel it, slimy and foreign and moving up from the new wound that marks its point of entry, gliding along my arm to enter my heart. It's an absurd fancy, of course—whatever of him made it inside of me was caught up by my bloodstream and has run through my heart and coursed through my whole body several times over by now, but still, I feel like I can feel it, slow and creeping.

When I can, I tear my eyes from the spot and look up at him. He isn't smiling, and although his eyes are alight with interest as always, he looks… not regretful, never that, but tired, I realize with a touch of surprise. Conversely, I feel alive, electrified, and belatedly I realize that my teeth are bared in a wide grin. I don't know why, given that I can feel that heavy weight on my chest that I only get when I'm about to break down crying. I open my mouth to say— _something. What? What can you say to this?_ —when a scratching at the doorway calls my attention away.

I look over my shoulder to see the Joker's ugly companion from earlier—Victor, _Vicky,_ the Joker had called him, and he wears a knowing leer, equally as unpleasant as any of his previous smirks and smiles. His stare lingers for a little too long, and I know what he's seeing—the Joker with his pants down, me kneeling in front of him—but it doesn't matter. _Does it? No. It never has._ I stare at him, and the Joker stares at him, and when it finally becomes clear to him that his intrusion isn't unsettling so much as mildly irritating, he takes the hint and speaks. "We're situated downstairs, Jokerman."

I glance at the Joker. He glances back at me, then over my head at Victor. "Okay. You, ah—you _need_ me for something?"

I recognize the question as a warning, something that a Joker henchman would have picked up on immediately, but whoever this Victor guy is, he isn't a Joker henchman, and he doesn't seem to be made uneasy by the sudden thickness in the atmosphere. He leans one shoulder against the doorframe, shrugs with the other almost coquettishly, and says, "No. Just thought you'd want to know."

I don't know what they're up to (I'm sure I'll find out inevitably), but I know two other things. First, I know the Joker, for all his "gifts," shouldn't be lording it over a war table until he's gotten a few hours of sleep at the very least. Second, I know that while I've grown accustomed to repeated violations of my life and mind and space by the Joker—in truth, enough that I hardly count them as violations anymore— _Vicky_ doesn't get that privilege. I get to my feet, and I go fearlessly over to where he's standing in the door frame. I hold my cut hand close to myself and reach up with the other, shoving at his shoulder. "Get out."

He doesn't budge an inch. He's bigger than I am by a good deal, bigger and bulkier than the Joker as well, and he doesn't bother to look at me, just looks directly over my head at the Joker and grins. "Really?" he asks, both in disbelief and amusement. The Joker makes a noncommittal noise.

" _Hey,_ " I say sharply, snapping my fingers. Victor finally looks at me, and the full force of that grin is creepy ( _because of course it is; he's a creep_ ) but I'm not particularly concerned. He's a bad guy, probably worse than I know, but I don't think the Joker will let him kill me. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'd rather be dead than give Victor free reign to my house, and as soon as I have his attention, I say, "If the Joker brought you with him, I guess that means you can stay if you have to, but downstairs. _Never_ up here."

As I speak, the grin melts off Victor's face, and by the time I'm finished, he's scowling, his little eyes as flat as flint. He looks over my head and addresses the Joker again: "Mouthy little bitch, isn't she? Is that why you like her?"

"He likes me because I'm funny," I say, deadpan, and I hear the Joker's high-pitched through-the-nose giggle behind me. "Get out."

"You're funny, all right," Victor says, and his tone makes the words a threat— _say something else "funny," go on, I dare you_ —but fortunately, grudgingly, he turns to go. I trail at his heels until he exits the bedroom, then I close and lock the door abruptly behind him, dragging over a chair to brace beneath the doorknob as extra security. I pause and wait, half-expecting angry pounding on the door, some mulish resistance of my enforcement of the order, but there's nothing. After a moment of silence, I hear his shoes scuffing their way down the hall towards the stairs, and only then do I return to the bathroom.

The Joker is slumping a little. He needs rest. I pause in the doorframe, taking stock of things, waiting for the strange tension to spring up between us again, but Victor's interruption seems to have done away with it. Already, just a moment or two away from it, it's taken on the quality of a dream in my head, fuzzy around the edges, like it hadn't really happened.

 _Except that it did,_ I think, looking down at my bleeding hand. I can brood about it later—right now, I need to clean and bandage the cut, so I step forward towards the sink. "Nice friend you got there," I say caustically, turning on the tap with my uninjured hand and then shoving the bloody one beneath the stream. The clear water stings me as it comes into contact with the cut, but as the water rinses away the blood, I can see that the injury is a shallow one, little more than a scratch, meant just to draw blood, not debilitate. I'm glad—the human hand is a delicate structure; much deeper and I could have lost the use of some fingers—but making mention of any sense of gratitude seems ill-advised.

"Yeah," the Joker sighs, and I glance over to see him dragging himself upright from the slouch he's fallen into. "He _could_ work on his comedic timing. Still, seems odd for him to take such a dislike to you so quickly."

"Yeah, well," I mutter, flipping open the medicine cabinet, "it's a gift of mine."

" _I_ liked ya just fine when I met you," the Joker puts in helpfully.

I ignore that. "You ever going to tell me how it is that you two are here together?" I ask as I find a roll of gauze and start winding it around my hand.

I expect him to keep playing coy, but he surprises me, both by answering me and sounding a little short when he does it: "Prison break buddies."

My hands go still, and I look over at him. "You don't go to prison, though. When they catch you. You go to Arkham."

"Don't I know it," he says with a put-on air of ruefulness.

The chills are back, and I can't keep myself from glancing over my shoulder, as though I'm going to find Victor creeping up behind me despite the locked and reinforced door ensuring that he can't get in here without giving me plenty of warning. The room is clear, of course, and when I look back at the Joker, his eyes have that light again, the one he gets when he's setting up something particularly bad.

"Who is he?" I ask quietly, because I don't want to know anymore, I really don't, but I know I _need_ to.

The Joker tilts his head; scratches behind an ear, not seeming to care that the blood on his hand is coming off onto his hair, making the strands gleam wet with red. "Victor Zsasz," he says in an absent tone, but that glitter in his eyes gives him away.

I stare at him. "I don't know that name."

"Oh, come on, Em," he says, managing to put on that teasing scolding tone even though he's slumped half-dead on the toilet. "I'd've thought that after your brush with the mob, you'd have done some reading up."

I grin suddenly at him, a knee-jerk reaction I'm beginning to realize is half-threat and half-defiance, and I say, "I only _brushed with_ the mob because of you, and I certainly haven't had contact with them since the last time I saw you. Out of sight, out of mind and all that. Who is Victor Zsasz?"

It's a mark of how tired he must be that he doesn't try to draw the interrogation out even longer. "Victor Zsasz," he says with a sigh, lacing his fingers together and staring ahead at the wall, like he's reciting from memory, " _was_ a low-level mob enforcer who had the contacts to successfully get out of a death sentence by pleading in _san_ ity… then along came some folks who laced the water supply with _jitter juice_ —people after my own heart, really—and suddenly, Vicky wasn't making be _lieve_ anymore. _These_ days, between stints at Arkham, anyway, he sells his services to anyone who's willing to look the other way when he gets a _little_ too enthusiastic with the knife."

He glances sideways at me and must see the blankness on my face, because he clarifies: "He's delusional, ya see."

I snort at that, because coming from the Joker, that's funny, it really is. "Is he."

"Mm. Thinks the world ended or… some shit like that," he says, frowning as he realizes he doesn't actually recall the details of Victor's particular affliction. "Whatever. Doesn't matter. The _point_ is that it always ends with Vicky skewering some pretty young thing in the guise of… _freeing_ her. _Telling,_ don't ya think, Em?"

"What is?" I ask, a little preoccupied trying to process the information that he's unloaded on me and trying to figure out what it means. Either he's trying to have me killed without having to get his hands dirty ( _unlikely, he'd just_ _ **love**_ _to be the one who takes my life in the end_ ) or this is another one of his games ( _bingo_ ). As usual, this realization sheds absolutely no light. _What are you up to?_ I think, staring narrowly at him.

He seems a little annoyed that I'm not as engaged in the conversation as he wants me to be—he exhales through his nose in irritation, and says, "That he targets _co-eds,_ Em. I feel like you aren't listening to me."

"Oh, I'm listening," I assure him. "You just told me that you brought a freshly-demented serial killer _here—_ to my _home,_ where I _live._ Not only that—oh no—but the serial killer in _question_ preys on _my_ demographic. Did I miss something, or is that about the size of it?"

He stares at me for a second, then sucks the inside of his scars—I can't tell if he's annoyed or amused now, and his eyes are telling me nothing. " _You_ sound angry," he points out.

"I'm not," I say, and I'm telling the truth, because as far as things worth getting angry at the Joker over register, this Victor thing ranks pretty low. "Just trying to make sure I know what I'm up against." My hand is done, so I toss the gauze across the room to him. "You should bandage your leg."

He catches the gauze out of the air without seeming to look at it and says, "Stitches first. I don't, ah, suppose you have a needle and thread?"

"I do, actually," I answer warily, "but, uh… I… am _not_ comfortable, y'know. Sewing your skin."

He snorts, shaking his head a little as he responds: "Well, _that's_ good, because I don't want you anywhere _near_ me with a needle. Hand it over."

I retrieve the little sewing kit I keep with the first aid, taking a second to douse the needle in alcohol, but before I take it to him, I glance over and ask, "Want anything from the medicine cabinet while I'm still over here?"

"Is there anything _fun_?"

"Sure," I say. "We've got Tylenol, Advil… oh, look out, here's some aspirin." He rolls his eyes, and I think he might be calling me a square under his breath as he turns to set the gauze on the tank behind him. "So that's a no on the aspirin?"

He doesn't answer. I'm getting the feeling that if I keep at him, I won't have any teeth left by morning, so I silently deliver the needle and spool of black thread before pulling back. "I'll find you something not bloody to wear, then," I volunteer. He keeps ignoring me as he threads the needle. It's probably for the best.

I exit the bathroom and head to my closet. "Finding" him something to wear won't be a challenge—shortly after I moved here, I went out and I bought a small assortment of men's clothing, as near to his size as I could guess. I'd thought it likely that he would eventually pay me a visit, and his tendency to show up covered in blood makes for a bit of an inconvenience—last time, I had to throw my couch away.

Hence clothes. (Other measures taken to prepare for his inevitable arrival included the gun, more bandages, at least one knife hidden somewhere in every room, a pair of police-issue handcuffs in my dresser, and a burner phone that I keep charged, silenced, and tucked into a slit cut into the bottom of my box-spring).

There are black jeans, sweat pants, a few plain white and black t-shirts, and a couple of flannels I doubt he'll ever actually wear (I mostly bought them as a joke). I pick up the sweats and take them back to the bathroom.

He's in the middle of stitching the wound and doesn't look at me. I sneak a glance—right as he's pushing the needle into the edge of his skin, unfortunately, and the sight of him pulling the black thread through makes me feel faintly, unexpectedly sick. I don't see the need to hang around to witness more, so I set the sweats on the counter beside him and leave the bathroom without a word.

I have a little television nook set up in the corner of my room—TV on the wall, a little armchair across from it—and I sit down, cross-legged, turning on the set. I change the channel to GCN, muting it so as not to ruffle any feathers, and then I watch for reports that might belie the Joker's assertion that no one knows he's out of town.

After ten minutes or so, I'm satisfied that he was telling the truth, and a shuffling at the bathroom doorway alerts me to the fact that he's finished. I turn off the TV and look over at him.

He's changed into the sweats, gotten rid of his bloodied shoes and socks, and stripped off the cop shirt, leaving just the white tee underneath, and I admit to being impressed that he was able to do all that while looking like a slight breeze would topple him. He looks thinner than I'm used to, I realize, and just as quickly I realize that's because I always see him dressed to the nines, in the heavy greatcoat that seems to double him in size, or at the least, in vest and dress shirt, in bright colors and lurid patterns that draw and distract the eye from the human himself.

His arms, wiry and white, hang from the short sleeves of the undershirt, and even from across the room, I can see the ugly pink and red and white knots of scar tissue scattered over them.

I don't gawk and I don't let the silence stretch for more than a couple of seconds, knowing from personal experience how negatively he reacts to staring. I meet his eyes and ask, simply, "You want to sleep?"

He doesn't answer right away. He's leaning on the door frame, taking the weight off his injured leg, and the way he's staring at me, I can't figure out if he's confused or angry or just tired. I stay in my seat, not wanting to get my head bitten off for the effrontery of moving without permission, and after a second or two of nothing but us just looking levelly at one another, he cocks his head abruptly, narrows his eyes, and says, "You're bein' _real_ friendly, Em."

After a beat, I say, "Well, that's because we're friends."

" _Are_ we?"

I show my palms, signaling my innocence. " _Your_ words. Last Christmas? _Best friends_?"

He shrugs, and winces, and starts making his slow, painful way towards the bed. "Sure," he agrees sibilantly, "but if I _recall_ … you always had some kind of… _objection_ to the idea." He flicks his hand, a summons, and I stand, moving towards him at about the same slow pace at which he's approaching the bed. "A more suspicious mind," he continues, finally reaching the bed's edge and lowering himself laboriously down to sit on it, "would think you were… lulling me into a false sense of _security._ "

By this point, I've come to stand in front of him, and he looks up at me, eyebrows raised like he's awaiting the reaction to a particularly funny story. "Not to be a kiss-ass," I answer flatly, "but I'm pretty sure that isn't possible."

He snorts, turns, then draws his legs up, one at a time. I watch, and when he's situated sitting upright against the headboard, I add, "I'm not going to call the cops, because between you and Victor, that'll turn into a hostage situation, and that just won't work out for me. I'm not going to kill you while you sleep, because that'll leave me alone in the house with Victor, and even _before_ I knew he was a serial killer, that wasn't an option. Have you _seen_ him?"

"Oh, worse than that, I had to _smell_ him the whole drive up here," the Joker says lazily, closing his eyes.

"Yeah," I say, "no thanks. And I'm not going to try to kill Victor while you're asleep, because _fuck that._ " He cracks one eye open and looks at me, and I sigh, daring to sit gingerly on the bed next to him. When he doesn't object, I say, "Look, we both know that you and I probably aren't going to get along any better than we _ever_ do, but I'm past the _wanting-to-kill-you_ thing, for now, anyway. Rest. When you wake up, I have questions for you to ignore."

He snorts, but apparently he's just tired enough to avoid being his contrary self for once. He slumps a bit, sliding down into a half-lying half-sitting position that looks infinitely more uncomfortable than either and murmurs, "Not planning to put a stake through my head, then. _That's_ nice."

"I thought it was the heart," I comment, reaching for a throw blanket folded at the foot of the bed.

He opens the other eye so he can glare more effectively at me. " _What_?"

"For vampires," I clarify, casually spreading the blanket over his lower half. "I thought you had to put a stake through their _hearts_."

Sounding irritated, he says, "For vampires, you do, but I'm not _talking_ about vampires."

"What _are_ you talking about?"

His eyes drift shut again. "Bible story," he mutters. "Jael, she, uh—drilled a _tent peg_ through the enemy commander's skull. While he slept in her home."

I stare at him for a moment, more than a little astonished that he's citing the _Bible_ , of all things, but when nothing else seems to be forthcoming, I shake my head slowly. "I… do _not_ remember that from Sunday School."

His lips actually turn up in a slight smile. "They wouldn't've taught it anyway," he says, and sighs. "Church people. They always censor the _good stuff_."

I wait, hoping he'll choose to talk more about this topic, doubly intriguing coming from _his_ lips, but he's done. In less than a minute, he's fallen asleep.

* * *

 **A/N** \- this chapter brought to you by red wine and regret (and also a bit of blood stuff, ew). why tf did the Joker have to bring Victor along? It's like he's cockblocking _himself_. What sort of masochistic bullshit...

Anyway. Next up: breakfast with the bad boys. Emma discovers their reason for bailing out of the city. It's not good. Go figure.

Y'all are wonderful. Guest reviewers you're amazing and I'm encouraging you to make accounts so I can send responses to your reviews! C'mon, it's nice here. One of you called me a goddess, that was nice. Everyone, thank you so much for the reviews and feedback! You all know how to make a girl feel loved. :) See you next week!


	4. iv

**IV**

 _I_ don't sleep. I think it unwise for both of us to knock out with the hulking serial killer lumbering around downstairs, so despite the fact that the Joker sleeps well past the hour I'm accustomed to going to bed, I stay awake and keep myself occupied.

I clean up the blood—not that it matters, but at this point it _is_ something to do. The bedroom floor is a mess, and the bathroom is worse: he'd thrown his discarded shoes and socks into the bathtub, and rusty brown is caked all across the floor. I scrub it all up, throwing the wash cloths I use for the task into a plastic bag along with his bloodied clothes. I place the rest of the clothes I'd gathered for him neatly on the bathroom counter. Then, I take a shower, sensing that it might be the last time I get the chance for a while—as soon as he wakes up, he'll be deciding how I spend my time. After cleaning up and changing into fresh clothes, I sit slouched in the armchair, staring unseeing at the muted television.

Victor's presence is bad news. He makes the occasional noise downstairs, thumping and clattering, making it impossible for me to truly zone out and forget he's here. I don't like the way he looks at me, and I don't like the strong possibility that the Joker brought him here on purpose, to fling him at me and see how I handle it.

That has to be the Joker's motive, right? Punishing me for shooting him by bringing Victor here? Of course, I believe what I said—that in some dark, withered chamber of his heart, he actually _does_ have some regard for me—but for him, for _us,_ that doesn't make us safe for each other. He'll keep hounding and hurting me, I'll struggle to stay a step ahead (or at least to not get dragged behind) and I'll do whatever I have to in order to thwart him. That's the way of it, this thing of ours. We're both incapable of ever letting it be anything else.

I find myself slipping in and out—not of consciousness, but of thought. I'm brought unpleasantly back to myself by a pounding on the door, and a quick glance at the window confirms that it's dawn already.

" _What_?!" I snap, unfolding my cramped limbs from the chair.

"It's been long enough," bellows Victor. "Joker! Get down here, we got work to do!"

"He'll come when he's ready," I snap, though the Joker has opened his eyes.

I hear Victor say something a little quieter, "mouthy bitch" again, I think, and then he strikes the door once, hard. "Don't make me come in there!"

"Go back down _stairs_ , Vicky," the Joker calls out suddenly, stretching his arms high above his head and then sitting up, slouched forward. "I'll be down in a minute."

There's silence, then more muttering I can't quite make out, followed by the sound of footsteps receding down the stairs. I look at the Joker, but he's launching himself out of bed with a force that's frankly ill-advised for a man with _his_ injury. He favors the right leg, but seems determined to otherwise ignore his wounds, disappearing into the bathroom and snapping the door shut behind him.

He's in there for ten minutes or so. When he comes out, he's made use of the clothes I'd gotten him—black jeans, black t-shirt clinging to his stark frame—and his face is still clear of paint. He must have gone rummaging through my things, because he found an elastic, and his matted hair has been twisted back into a stumpy ponytail. Huddled in my chair, I cross my arms over my chest at the sight of him, as if I can ward him off like an evil spirit, because I _hate_ seeing him like this. I hate seeing him dressed down, without his makeup, _human,_ because it's harder to bear in mind the monster he _actually_ is.

He sees me staring, leans against the doorframe, puts his hands in his pockets, and stares moodily back. In the absence of paint, the purpled shadows under his eyes are painfully evident—I'd thought they might fade with rest, but they haven't, not even after a full night's sleep.

"Wanna take a _picture_?" he asks.

I'm actually grateful he said something—it helps me snap out of it, get back in the moment. "No," I say, unfolding myself from the chair and standing. "What would you like me to do?"

He probes at his scars with his tongue, watching me. I think I'm throwing him off, asking that question so often, and I wait for him to turn it around on me, to ask me something twisted and perverse and force me to pull back, but instead, letting go of his scars with a sucking sound, he says definitively, "Pancakes."

I raise my eyebrows. "Come again?"

"You know, _pancakes_ ," he repeats, coming further into the room. "I want pancakes. I'm hungry."

"I'll bet," I say automatically, though this seems surreal and certainly makes me uncomfortable—paintless Joker, sleeping Joker, now _hungry_ Joker—there's too much _normal_ about this, and it's putting me on edge. Normalcy in the Joker's case is an _abnormality_ , and I can't help but imagine it's the harbinger of something newly terrible.

But by now I've learned the futility of trying to hit the brakes where he's concerned. The only way to go is forward, and anyway, all this _unknown_ is getting under my skin: better to find what's hiding in the dark than to stand here staring and wondering what's to come.

"Okay," I say. "Pancakes, I think I can do."

* * *

That's how five minutes later I'm standing at the stove and trying to ignore the fact that I have two of Gotham's most wanted sitting at my table.

This whole thing is starting to make me feel like some Dillinger moll, running a safe house where bad men can come and lick their wounds and be cooked for and cleaned up after, but if there was ever an awful time to raise a fuss about it, this is it. I stand at the stove and I flip pancakes and I listen.

It's kind of funny—Victor clearly doesn't trust me, so he makes a solid effort to whisper. The Joker, on the other hand, could not care less what I hear, and so the result is that I can clearly make out his entire side of the conversation.

"After breakfast."

"Well, I'm not _stopping_ you, Vicky. _You_ do whatever you _want._ "

"Because—and I don't know if you _know_ this, Victor—getting _holes_ gouged in you means you work up, uh, quite the appetite."

"She's—" and here a pause, a hissing inhale—"sure. Why not. Lady friend, _special lady,_ it's all the same when it comes down to it, wouldn't you say?"

Some muttering on Victor's end, and the Joker cackles. "Well, _no,_ don't _trust_ her."

An indignant exclamation. The Joker sighs. "Well, think of it this way, then—do you trust _me_?"

Silence.

"Smart boy. Then why would you trust any of my _people_? Aw, you're a _peach_ —" this last to me, as I deliver the first plate of pancakes to the table, and I shoot him a look.

"I'm _not_ 'your people.'"

"Sure you are," he says glibly, and I shake my head, but I don't push the argument further, because he's clearly got his mind made up. I head back to the stove, and at an inquisitive murmur from Victor, the Joker says, " _Nah_. She knows better than to poison me. Now, whether she'd poison _you_ , on the other hand…"

Victor growls, and I'm torn between being pleased to note that the Joker has no apparent fondness for him and irritated that he seems set on reminding Victor that I am not on his side. While it's true that if I get the chance, I'll send Victor back to Arkham in a heartbeat, I'd rather _not_ keep him on his toes.

It's a little quieter now that I've given them their food. The Joker is chewing away, noisily and contentedly, and Victor… well, when I glance over my shoulder at Victor, he's glaring at me like he'd rather eat _me,_ but at least he's quit whining about me crashing in on their little boys' club.

Like I had any choice in the matter.

I make a few more batches of pancakes, till we've got more than enough, then I turn off the stove and join them at the table—simple, wooden, seats four people, Joker and Victor sitting across from each other, so I'm stuck positioned squarely between them or doing what I eventually opt to do, which is drag my chair a little bit closer to the Joker before taking a seat. It's not the first time I've chosen the devil I know over the one I don't, and I doubt it'll be the last, so I brush off their telling reactions—a sneer from Victor, a significant glance from the Joker—and clear my throat, signifying that I'd like to speak.

The Joker comes through. "Somethin' to say, Em?"

"Yeah. Unless it's an integral part of your plan to leave it where it is, I suggest one of you move the car you brought here around to the back of the house."

"Why?" demands Victor.

I turn my gaze reluctantly to him. I'd rather deal exclusively with the Joker, but given that _he_ seems perfectly content stuffing his face and not involving himself in this discussion whatsoever, it looks like I'll have to answer Victor. (I could refuse to acknowledge him whatsoever, but he already dislikes and mistrusts me after our little standoff last night, and I don't see how fanning those flames into outright hatred will benefit me. Disliking someone is a part of life, _hating_ them calls for an extra effort towards revenge, and I'm not too keen on courting that from a man inclined towards bloody violence already.)

"Because the marshals could be driving past at any time to check on me."

"Marshals?" he repeats faintly.

"Given the lack of uproar I doubt they've looked in on me since before you got here, but when they _do_ check, it tends to be in the morning, so the sooner the better. If they clock you, we'll have an ugly mess to deal with. I've played the part of hostage before and I'm not really a fan."

Victor glares at the Joker and spits, "She's in witpro?"

" _Witpro_? That's a cool word. Did you learn that word from the mob?" I ask, conveniently forgetting the resolution I made just seconds ago, because damn it, I'm only human. The Joker snarfs into his pile of pancakes.

Victor slams a fist on the table, making dishes rattle.

The Joker finishes chewing, swallows, and only then does he look up, deliberately, and meet Victor's livid gaze.

"You didn't tell me she was a _fucking_ snitch," Victor hisses.

The Joker exhales testily through his nose and blinks slowly, communicating his boredom with the conversation as thoroughly as if he'd shouted it. Finally, he rests an elbow on the table, licks his lips, and points at me. "She snitched on _me,_ Vicky," he says, "with _my_ permission"—and if that's a bald-faced lie, now doesn't seem to be the time to call him out on it.

"A snitch is a snitch," Victor says stubbornly.

The Joker glances at me, looking like he swallowed something regrettable, then back at Victor to say, with sardonic brightness, "A fruit is a fruit. A vegetable's a vegetable—um, except for a tomato, which is, you know, sorta _both._ See? I'm good at this complicated stuff, Vicky, so why don't you leave the worrying to _me_?"

For a minute, they just stare at each other, and I'm halfway waiting for the theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly to start playing, but I must miss something, some universal _stand down_ signal they only teach to tough guys, because Victor turns his stare to me at the same time the Joker speaks up again, exasperated: "Lemme put it this way—she's in, uh, _witpro_ —so why do I know where to find her?"

Victor glances at him again. The Joker raises his eyebrows, nods encouragingly, and spells it out for him: "She's on _our_ side—and that'll be a moot point, by the way, if the marshals drop in and see the car, so why don't you be a _pal_ and move it, huh?"

Victor glares and growls and eventually gets up to go do what the Joker told him to. I wait until he leaves the room (which he only does after casting one last ugly look at me), then I perch my elbows on the table and say, "Since it seems relevant right about now—Joker?"

He's helping himself to another stack of pancakes and doesn't even look at me, just replies absently, "Yes, dumpling?"

I have to take a second to shake _that_ one off, then I say, "Maybe don't tell Victor I might be trying to poison him." He looks slyly at me out of the corners of his eyes, and I widen mine emphatically. "Seriously. We're all gonna have problems if he tries to kill me."

" _Are_ we?"

I glance at him, remember that I'm not entirely sure that _isn't_ his goal, and switch tactics. "To be honest, at this point, I'm not sure he won't go after _you,_ " I point out.

"Naw," the Joker says dismissively, pouring more syrup on his pancakes than I've ever seen a single person eat in my life. "Vicky loves me."

"I feel like you're lying about that."

"Oh, _sure_ he does. I'm not the one making fun of his _cool words._ "

My worry cracks for a second; a mischievous smile breaks through to the surface, and the Joker pauses and smiles conspiratorially back, more with his wicked eyes than anything else. Then he goes back to his breakfast, and I make an effort to get a lid on things, to remind myself that _talking_ about the hulking serial killer like he's a harmless fool doesn't _make_ him a harmless fool.

"Yeah, so anyway," I say, "I'm think I'm doing a good job making him hate me all by myself, so please… just _don't help._ "

He looks at me, lips pursed and brows hitched up skeptically: _you sure?_ I widen my eyes in emphatic response, and he shrugs, says "Suit yourself," and goes back to stabbing pancakes.

I rest my chin on my hand, watching him—in truth, staring a little. I've never seen _this_ —this, or anything like it, the Joker dressed in plain black, no war paint, sitting calmly at my kitchen table and putting away an amount of pancakes that would make _me,_ for one, violently ill. It's a bad idea, a trap, but I still find my eyes resting on a spiderweb of shining pink flesh splayed across his left elbow, one of the many scars marking his arms.

Then he puts his elbows to the table and glares at me. "Stop _staring_. Mgonna put a fork through your eye."

I avert my gaze. _I thought you enjoyed people paying attention to your scars,_ I think but don't say, because I know enough to take the warning seriously. Before I can come up with something worth saying that won't get me hurt, Victor—noisily, the way he seems to do everything—comes in through the back door.

He glowers at me, looks at the Joker, and gruffly says, "You coming?"

The Joker is already halfway out of his seat, but pauses to lean over me and put his hand on the back of my chair, then, to my surprise, he slides his half-full plate over in front of me.

"Eat something," he says, tilting his head to peer at me right as I look suspiciously sideways at him. " _I_ remember what happens when you don't."

 _Ah, yes, wouldn't want to inconvenience you by losing consciousness._ "Sir," I say with mock-military snappiness, which is all he seems to care to wait around for—he straightens up, tugs on a piece of my hair, and is following Victor into the living room by the time I grab a fresh fork.

The Joker is right, I need to eat, but I pointedly ignore his offered plate—not because I'm squeamish about eating after him at this point, necessarily, but because I think I'll choke and die on that much syrup. Instead I grab some fresh pancakes from the diminished stack and mechanically wolf them down, my mind racing, touching on a hundred different subjects in a moment. Beneath its bandage, the cut on my hand is stinging—not badly, but enough that I keep remembering it. My eyes burn a little, and I know I'm going to have to sleep eventually. Last time, I'd needed a lot of rest to keep up with the chaos (internal and external) he'd brought to my door. I wonder whether it'll be the same this time.

I hear their voices in the next room—Victor's a low rumble, the Joker's high-pitched and mocking. Both are indiscernible, and as much as I tell myself I should stay out of it, I know full well I've never been the keeping-her-head-down type. If there's something going on in my house, I'm going to bear witness to it, as much as it might benefit me to plug my ears and pretend I have no idea what's happening. I buy myself a few minutes by scraping the uneaten food into the garbage and leaving the sticky dishes to soak in a sinkful of soapy water, and then, after taking a deep breath to steady myself, I join the two men.

I immediately wish I hadn't, though that's to be expected. The shades are drawn, casting the room in shadow except for the light cast by a tall reading lamp with an ugly fluorescent bulb (it came with the house, I never use it because I hate the sickly pale light and can't be bothered to switch the bulb). The Joker is sitting on the couch, knees sprawled open and arms stretched out luxuriously across the back so that he takes up more space than he could possibly need. Victor is in an armchair across from him, leaning forward with his elbows braced against his knees, looking combative. On the short end table between them, the target of the ugly light, is a hand.

I look away. I look back, reluctantly.

 _Ah. Yep, that's a hand._

The hand in question is attached to about three inches of arm. The place where it was severed has a cloth or towel tied around it, one that used to be white but which is now stained—rusty brown around the edges, brighter and redder towards the middle. Even from the doorway, I can see that the nails are painted a perfect deep red and there's a ring with a diamond the size of a walnut on the index finger.

My stomach turns. I brace a hand against the door frame and wait for a moment, but it appears that my reaction is limited to that single, sudden lurch (unless you count a growing sense of repulsion and horror, which I don't—not physical enough). The Joker wasn't looking at me when I first appeared, but he is now, his attention possibly caught by my movement, and there's an ugly little smile playing around his mouth that doesn't reach his eyes, a challenge or mockery of what he knows I must be thinking, or something entirely different. I look back at him briefly, trying not to show too much of myself, before turning my attention to the unfolding scene.

He and Victor—surprise, surprise—appear to be arguing. "I'm tellin' you," Victor is saying, "this pussy shit is a bad idea."

The Joker pulls his gaze from me, instead looking at Victor with an expression of boundless patience. "Ah," he says. "Like I keep _telling_ you… this, uh, _pussy shit_ is gonna bankroll _both_ of us for the next _year._ Now, I _realize_ a guy in your line of work isn't big on the planning part'a things, but when you're cozied up in a warm safehouse instead of bunked down in Gotham's sewers, freezing and covered in _shit_ and fighting off the people-eatin' _crocodiles_ down there, you'll _thank_ me."

I think he might be thinking a bit too optimistically there—Victor doesn't strike me as the grateful type. At any rate, he's not buying it: "You're dragging it _out,_ " he says, tersely biting off every word. "We're gonna get caught."

"Anything worth doing carries _risk,_ " the Joker says, unperturbed. "Anyway. _You_ wanted to inflict _maximum injury._ "

That seems to confuse Victor. He glances down at the arm, then back at the Joker. "But… she's already dead."

The Joker's benevolence wavers for a split second. He closes his eyes, a long blink, then says, "Not on _her_ —" and though he manages to refrain from adding " _you idiot,"_ it's still heavily implied. "On _him._ I thought that was what you _wanted_."

"I already _got_ what I wanted," Victor complains. "The bitch is free. He's stuck here. You're making things complicated _._ "

The Joker stares hard at him and shakes his head a little, like he's dislodging a fly from his ear or resetting his brain because he's sure he didn't just hear what he heard. I'm with him; I want to ask Victor if he's actually _met_ the Joker. I hold my tongue, though, and the Joker's patience, which has held together admirably till now, runs out. He leans forward, elbows propped on his knees, and says, "You thinking twice about the plan?" He jabs a finger towards the front door, just inside his eye line. "There's the way out. But that way, you don't get paid, and you don't send the right… _message._ I gotta say, Vicky, I don't recommend it," he adds, screwing up his face emphatically and shaking his head.

Victor, who'd half-risen from his chair at the prompt, pauses and scowls, and after a minute, he sinks back into his seat, though he doesn't look happy about it.

The Joker waits for a second, ostensibly to make sure he's made up his mind, though it seems to me more like he's rubbing his victory in. The moment passes, and with a flick of his wrist, he produces a fixed-blade knife, which glints in the ugly light. "Since you know your way around one of these," he says magnanimously, and stabs the blade into the tabletop right next to the hand, "why don't you do the honors?"

Victor watches him warily, but his face is softening, his resentful glare easing into an expression that looks slightly, unsettlingly eager. He reaches out, wrenches the knife out of the table, and points the tip at the Joker. "Give 'em the ring finger? Prove it's authentic?"

The Joker hums, a noise of dissent. "Stick with the classics. Pinky finger. We don't want him to get wise too quick—guys out for ransom? They're not gonna give up diamonds unless they _have_ to."

Victor shrugs and grabs the hand by the wrist, and a noise escapes me, unbidden but not unwelcome because it makes him pause, and if he's about to do what I _think_ he's about to do, I really don't want to see it.

Still staring at Victor, the Joker says, "Somethin' wrong, doll?"

Instead of answering the question, I counter with another. "Whose hand is that?"

The Joker leans back into the couch, stretches the arm closest to me out along the back again, and then turns his head to give me his best look of wide-eyed innocence. "Uh… I thought it was obvious that it belongs to _us._ "

I exhale through my nose, short and angry, because I'm not in the mood for this. "And _before_ it belonged to you?"

Before he glances away, I can see he's got a light in his eyes, like he can't wait for me to find out. He polishes his fingernail on a lapel, studies it intently, and, in an absent-minded tone I know better than to trust, he replies, "Uh… Miss Lucille Rossi."

I have no idea who that is, but at the moment, I can think of a more pertinent question to ask, which I do, forcing it past the knot tightening in my throat: "And where's the rest of Miss Lucille Rossi?"

The Joker sucks in a breath past his teeth, then hums it out again thoughtfully. "Well," he says, "you 'member the sewers I was talking about earlier?"

I close my eyes for a long second. "Of course," I say, hating that I sound resigned instead of horrified.

"Of course, I doubt she's in any recognizable state," he muses, and I'd think he was talking to himself if I didn't know just how much he loves to get a reaction out of me. "Last I saw her, on her way down the drain, she was lookin' kinda… _pulpy._ "

I push past the sudden wave of revulsion—lingering on this information will just result in me giving him the reaction he wants. "Why her?" I want to know.

Victor loses patience with the conversation right around here. He bangs the fist curled around the knife hilt down on the table to express his irritation, then points the blade at me and addresses the Joker: "You gonna get a leash on her anytime soon?"

The Joker doesn't look back at him, just extends a hand towards him, index finger pointed towards the ceiling, _wait._ "Because," he says matter-of-factly, watching me, "she's Salvatore Maroni's mistress."

I stare at him, thinking about a hundred thoughts at once—predominantly _why are you trying so hard to get yourself killed_ —but before I can ask what the hell Maroni did to _him_ to prompt this, Victor's patience apparently wears thin, and he grasps the wrist of the hand again. "You two keep talkin'," he spits, annoyed. "I'm getting down to business."

I glance at the hand again—waxy and white under the ugly light, it looks more like a Halloween prop than anything real. Even so, I have no desire to witness Victor hack a finger from it, and I meet the Joker's eyes briefly (he's still watching me, an eyebrow slightly arched in a challenge I see no need to rise to) before turning on the spot, shoulder brushing the doorframe as I spin around and head back into the kitchen.

I go in to the sink and fill a glass with water, then sip from it automatically as I stare through the window at the cornfields out back and assess.

While fortunately I've never met Sal Maroni, I know about him. He'd been in the news a fair bit a couple of years ago, right around the Joker's rise to prominence, as a matter of fact. I actually remember a discussion involving him last Christmas, when I was trying to get up to speed vis à vis the status of the mob in Gotham—the Joker's henchmen had been dismissive of him, as Maroni had been in some kind of accident that dramatically reduced his involvement in the game. That's changed now, apparently, enough that an association with him is so dangerous that some innocent woman had to die for it.

(I have no doubt that if the Joker were privy to my current thoughts, he'd inform me, in that tone of perfectly feigned regret, that Lucille Rossi was _anything_ but innocent. Maybe he'd even be right, but I can't think of many people evil enough that I'd think they deserved death at the hands of the two men currently sitting in my living room.)

Here's what I can piece together based on what I heard in there and what the Joker told me earlier: Victor has a grudge against Maroni. The Joker may or may not, but regardless of which, given the size of the diamond on poor Lucille's finger and the Joker's talk about _bankroll,_ he's rich enough that abducting his mistress for ransom poses a significant temptation. Of course, she's dead by now, but Maroni doesn't know that. He's lured Victor into this scheme with the promise of a payoff and—how did he put it?— _maximum injury_ inflicted on Maroni, and sure, if it pans out right, a hefty ransom exchanged for a dead girlfriend would be a swift kick in the balls for anyone.

The problem is I don't think it's _going_ to pan out right. The Joker, as I know from painful experience, _robs banks_ when he needs money—this kidnapping mess, working with a surly partner who just so happens to be another known denizen of Gotham's underworld… it doesn't seem like his kind of thing. He's working another angle on this thing, he's got to be, and it's probably all going to end with Sal Maroni and his enforcers descending on our heads and looking for blood.

 _Thank you, but no._ I'm done with my glass of water, and I put it in the sink, then I reach up to the hook above the radiator where my keys hang, palm them softly so that they don't clink together, and stop to listen. I hear the creaking murmur of the Joker's voice, and when Victor raises his in a belligerent response, I slip almost silently through the back door.

It's a beautiful morning—the sun is bright and warm, easing the bite in the air left over from last night, but I find myself wishing that it was still dark, or at least for a bit of cloud cover. I cross around the back of the house, move briskly alongside the cornfield edging my side yard, and turn the corner into the front yard.

My car sits invitingly in the driveway, twenty feet away. I make it approximately five before the front door bursts open and Victor rumbles, "Goin' somewhere, girlie?"

I bolt. Victor vaults off the porch and tears towards me, and I'm closer, but he's got a lot of height and reach on me, and my fingers barely brush the car door handle before he snatches me up from behind, lifting me high off my feet and spinning me away from the car, towards the house.

I think in that first moment about biting him, but he's got me around the ribs, too far from me to reach his arms, and he's squeezing me too tight for me to twist around and get his throat. I kick him instead—drive my heel back into his shin as hard as I can. He buckles, just a bit, enough that my feet hit the ground, and I try bracing my feet against the ground and springing back, hoping to catch his chin with the hard back of my head, but he recovers before I can get traction and lifts me up again. Then the Joker reaches us.

"Ah, ah, ahhh," he growls, seizing my wrist, and I tighten my fingers instinctively, but it's no good—he pries them open painfully and snatches the keys out of my hand.

"No—!" I start, then Victor clamps a hand over my mouth, and I can do nothing but watch as the Joker winds back like an all-star pitcher and sends the keys flying into the cornfield.

I go for another kick. Victor slams me into the car and shoves my cheek down onto the hood, holding me there with one hand on my head.

"Fuck off," I spit, furious at both of them; "fuck _you._ "

The Joker tilts into my line of vision, hobbling a little to maintain his balance. "Talk shit get hit, Emma," he lectures me.

"Your people, huh?" Victor snaps. "On _our_ side? Then why's she making a fuckin' run for it?"

The Joker peers at me a minute longer, flashes me a grin, then straightens up and shrugs innocently at Victor, arms going out wide to signal that hey, he's clueless too. "Uh… _women. You_ know how it is, Victor."

"I ain't going back to Arkham just cause you felt like gettin' some trim off a civvy bitch," snaps Victor, and the Joker blows out an annoyed sigh.

"Then stuff her in a closet or something. _I_ don't care whatchya gotta do to feel _secure_ again, Vicky, but get _inside._ "

"Right," Victor says, "because of _her_ marshals—" but the fact that the Joker's not defending himself or me clearly deflates him a little. He gets an arm around my waist, slaps a hand over my mouth, and lifts me from the hood of the car.

I want to fight back, but now that the Joker's protection (such as it was) has been lifted, I don't want to whip him into a real fury. I don't think he'll do anything serious without provocation, not yet: Victor doesn't seem much on brains, but even he's got to see that killing me would dramatically upset the already-tenuous dynamic between him and the Joker, and I don't think he'll want to do that without feeling sure he'll come out on top.

I deadweight him instead, making him carry every ounce of me. He grunts and lugs me along, and behind us, the Joker calls out: "I'm disappointed in you, Em. I thought we were _friends._ "

 _We are friends,_ I think but can't say because of Victor's hand biting painfully into my cheek. _So what?_

Then Victor kicks the door open and carries me into the house.

The rough hair on his chin scratches at my temple. He smells—smells like unwashed man, but something else, too. Something like decomposition.

(The Joker smells more like an electrical fire. I never in my life thought I'd miss being manhandled by _him_ instead.)

Victor lets go of my mouth. I say "Put me _down._ "

"Suit yourself," he says, sounding smug, and I realize too late that the reason he took his hand from my mouth was because he was using it to open a door. He shoves me into the coat closet and yanks the door shut behind me, casting me in semi-darkness.

Given that I'd been intentionally not putting any weight on my feet, I stumble as I try to stay upright and smack into the back wall. I can taste blood where I bit the side of my cheek, and the situation is not ideal, but honestly, as far as punishments Victor could have dished out, this one is on the light side of the spectrum.

 _God,_ I think as I gingerly turn around in my limited space, _he took the Joker's first suggestion and just… went with it, no modifications. He really isn't big on brains, is he?_

There's enough morning light streaming in through the cracks around the door that it doesn't take my eyes but a few seconds to adjust, and then I'm standing on tiptoe, reaching up past the hanging coats to grab a shoe box on the top shelf. I flip the lid off, grope past the sneakers inside, and grab the switchblade hidden beneath them.

A knife in every room.

I tuck the switchblade into my pocket and put the shoebox back, then I try the door. It doesn't give at all—he must have wedged something against it.

Honestly, I'm fine with it. My head hurts from hitting the car hood and the wall (not the throbbing, dizzying _this will be a head injury_ ache, just hot raw surface stinging) and my eyes burn, and if they think they're _punishing_ me by sticking me in a closet, that means they probably won't be keen to let me out anytime soon. This is as safe as I'm going to get for the foreseeable future, so it seems the ideal time to catch up on the sleep I missed last night.

I throw some coats on the ground for padding and wad up more as a pillow. Then, I curl up into a loose ball on the floor, cover myself with my biggest and most comfortable coat, and I close my eyes.

* * *

 **A/N** \- long one tonight, friends. There's a sneeze-and-you'll-miss-it reference to The Big Lebowski in this chapter somewhere. Y'all be patient with Victor, his character isn't super close to canon Zsasz but he gets a POV spot in the next chapter that sheds some light on what's happening behind those beady little eyes. Currently I'm just enjoying the way he and the Joker interact.

btw reader response to the last chapter was _phenomenal_. You guys are really on your a-game, I haven't laughed this much at reviews in forever. Guest reviewer Charlotte commented " I love this little community you've got going, everyone has awesome humor" and I totally agree, y'all are hilarious and make me happy every single day. :)

Next: Emma and the Joker get cozy (ha). Victor does some scheming. See you then!


	5. v

**V**

It seems like only minutes later that I hear feet scuffing outside the door. I know I've been sleeping, but some part of my consciousness has remained aware of the danger I'm in, because I'm awake again immediately, sitting up just as the door is wrenched open.

The Joker is standing there, and the glow behind him has the distinct orangey quality of afternoon sunlight. I lift a hand to shield my eyes, and the Joker says, in a voice full of delight, "You were _sleeping_ in there?"

"Well," I say, voice raspy with sleep, "we don't _all_ have someone nice enough to stand guard over us while we sleep." I start struggling to my feet (my legs are aching from being curled up for what had to have been a couple of hours; I have to lean on the wall for a second before I can get them to cooperate) asking grouchily as I do, "Where's your new best friend?"

He braces an elbow against the doorframe and leans into it, cocking his head inquisitively at me. He's lost the hair tie at some point; his hair frames his face in rumpled strands. "Don't tell me you're _jealous._ "

"Just don't want him pushing me around anymore. You were right. He stinks."

A flash of dingy teeth in a little appreciative grin, then the Joker says, "Well, Em, you can relax. He's, uh, he's gone to the post office. Delivery for Mr. Maroni."

"I'm assuming you know the post office can track where packages came from," I say, working my feet out from the tangle of the coats and moving to the doorway, pushing a shoulder into his chest to signal that I want to get by _._

"I'm assuming _you_ know that 'post office' is a euphemism," he says, moving obligingly to let me pass, but as I move on, he grabs me hard by the upper arm and says, "Ah, ah, ah—" while reaching into my pocket with the other hand. "What's _this_?"

I raise my eyebrows at him and say, "It's a knife."

I see a flash of something, maybe amusement, in his eyes for a second before he raps me on the forehead with the hilt (it fucking _hurts,_ the Joker doesn't see the point in being gentle even with his affection), then slips it back into my pocket. "Don't stick _me_ with it," he warns, then lets me go and brushes past me, hobbling towards the living room.

The fact that he lets me keep it is not comforting. I turn to look at his retreating back and I say, "Joker, what are you doing with that chump?"

He doesn't answer me, just vanishes into the living room, and I take a rain check on the conversation, because I need to pee.

Knowing that Victor's out of the house helps me feel more at ease than I have since the two of them showed up, but on my way past the phone I see that the line has been cut. No doubt my cell phone has disappeared from where I left it on the coffee table; they couldn't have failed to notice it while they were having their little rendezvous around Lucille Rossi's arm. I decide that using the upstairs bathroom would be wise—I can casually take inventory of my remaining assets that way.

The burner cell is still tucked neatly into the box-spring, there's a knife where I left it in the bathroom cabinet, but my gun is gone from the bedside drawer where I'd tucked it away yesterday. I wonder if Victor's been up here, taking advantage of my imprisonment to rifle through the forbidden space, but I think it more likely that the Joker was the one to take the gun. I'm the Joker's liability; he can win back some of Victor's limited trust by showing him that I don't have the means to shoot him anymore. Anyway, that way, _he'd_ have hands on the gun.

I wash up in the bathroom, then return to the living room. The Joker has unearthed a pack of cards from somewhere and is dealing out a game of solitaire on the now-pristine coffee table, his eyes fixed on the TV as his hands move automatically and precisely. I lean against the doorframe, fold my arms, and ask again, "Why the hell are you working with Victor?"

"Uh. Shut up, would you, Em?" he replies absently, his focus on the screen not wavering for a second. "I'm trying to watch this."

I lean into the room and look at the screen, but instead of GCN, which I mostly expect, _The_ _Andy Griffith Show_ is playing. _Ugh._ I feel impatience bubbling up, along with a touch of panic, because I don't know how long Victor will be gone, because it's proven next to impossible to talk to the Joker with him around and because I hate being kept in the dark when the stakes are this high.

I choke the urgency back and pass through the room into the kitchen. Begging the Joker for anything always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'll manage to live without his secrets. _Food,_ on the other hand—the kitchen clock declares it to be just after 2 PM, and pancakes aren't exactly known for sticking to your ribs.

One thing about witness protection is that you find yourself with a lot of free time on your hands even _with_ a job ( _right, I need to call in for tomorrow before they mark me as a no-call no-show and people's ears start pricking up_ ). I'd always wanted to know how to cook, but I'd always been too busy, too tired, too whatever. Here upstate, I'm not _too_ anything, and the result is that I have a fully stocked kitchen and the modest skills to do something with it. I'm hungry, and having something to do will ease the anxiety hovering just above everything else in my head, so I bunch my curls back into a ponytail, wash my hands, and get to work.

A small onion and four cloves of garlic, all finely chopped, go into a skillet with a few tablespoons of heated olive oil, then once I've sautéed them soft, I scrape the lot into a pot of tomato sauce. Leaving that to simmer, I take a package of stew beef from the fridge, trim the fat, cut it into smaller chunks, then dump it all into the skillet to brown.

After a few minutes, the Joker wanders in, the fragrance of the food prep luring him away from the apparent siren call of Andy Griffith. His shuffle has a heavier quality than usual on one side, his only visible concession to the hole in his leg, and he approaches me, stopping only when the front of his right shoulder is brushing against the back of my left as I stand at the stove. With his right hand, he pulls the elastic out of my hair; with his left, he reaches past and nimbly plucks a piece of half-raw meat from the oil and pops it into his mouth.

"Okay, but when you find out you've picked up a tapeworm, don't come crying to me," I say, but the objection is halfhearted at best, and instead of shoving him away, I find myself reaching up to slide a hand along the side of his neck, thumb rubbing idly at his pulse point. The movement is so easy it startles me—it feels familiar, like muscle memory, almost.

For his part, the Joker responds to my idle caress with more wary curiosity than hostility, peering narrowly at me along the bottom rims of his eyes. Before he can decide whether or not to take issue with my touch, I lift my hand away from him and point up to the second shelf of the seasoning cabinet behind us, the one I have slightly more trouble than usual reaching on my own. "Can you grab that bottle for me, please?"

He looks at the bottle of chili powder I'm pointing at, glances back at me, looks back at the bottle, curls his fingers around it, and moves it to the empty shelf right above it.

"Okay, you know what," I growl, bracing my hand against his shoulder and using him as a handhold as I get one knee on the counter. I fully intend to climb up there and get the damn powder myself since he's being _worse_ than useless, but he makes a noise that I'd call a kind of laugh if I wasn't sure he'd deny it, gets an arm around my waist and swipes me neatly off the counter, then reaches up to get me the chili powder for real this time.

"Thank you," I say pointedly as I take it from his hand.

"What're you making?" he asks, stealing another piece of meat with one hand and pulling his carcass up to sit on the counter with the other.

I shake the bottle of powder at him in answer before dumping some into the tomato sauce. "How's your leg?"

His head twitches to the side; he pulls a face—annoyed, I think, that I care. "The, uh, doctors think I'll keep it."

I reach past him for the cumin and brown sugar and change the subject. "Why are you trying to bait Salvatore Maroni?"

The Joker curls a hand around the counter on either side of him, bracing against it so his head and shoulders jut forward. The casual pose makes him look younger than he usually does, though maybe that's also the civilian clothes, the clean face. He purses his lips thoughtfully and then says, "It's complicated."

I snort. "It always is."

He grins, then in a flash, it's gone. "Well," he says, lifting a hand and making a gesture, _pay attention now,_ "line of work Maroni is in means he's got, uh… regular use for _mindless muscle_."

"Which, I'm assuming, is where Victor comes in."

"Atta girl," he says. "Thing is, what you and I know, and what, presumably, Maroni _didn't,_ is that Victor is more _wild card_ than _employee of the month_. When he inevitably went _off-script,_ Maroni wasn't too pleased. Word is, he set him up, had him packed back off to Arkham… and given that ol' Vicky had only _just_ escaped a couple months before, he did no _t_ react well."

I consider this as I stir the pile of seasonings into the pot, and after a moment, I say, "If Maroni took issue with Victor's methods, why wouldn't he just have him killed?"

"Ahh," said the Joker, drawing his tongue along the inside of his cheek so it made a pleased _pop_ sound _._ "That'd be because Sal Maroni has gotten _mean._ "

I laugh softly at that. "Mean, huh?"

"Yep _._ "

"Mean like he wanted his former employee to _know_ he'd been cast off."

" _Yep._ "

The thought is an interesting one. Knowing Victor, knowing his purported reputation, the fact that Maroni was willing to stab him in the back _without_ immediately killing him afterwards to remove him as a threat points to Maroni being the sort of man who doesn't care who he pisses off—or at least, wants people to _think_ he doesn't.

 _Of course,_ I remind myself, _**you**_ _were the one pissing off Victor just a few hours ago, so maybe he's just got the kind of face that invites people to fuck with him._

I glance over at the Joker to see that he's twisted at the waist so he can go rummaging in my seasonings cabinet and is currently busy unscrewing the lid to my salt shaker. I scoff— _as long as it keeps him from getting bored, I guess_ —and pick up the thread of the discussion again. "So from there, let me guess." He glances up attentively, and I tick off the chain of events on my fingers. "Victor's on his way to jail. The cops have just so happened to pick _you_ up around the same time. United by a common cause, if nothing else, the two of you put your heads together and manage to bust out. Seeing as that worked so well, you decide to stick together for a little while—Victor's blood is up and he wants revenge, and since you're always up for pissing off your competitors, especially if there's a payday involved, you figure you might as well pitch in. Is that more or less how it played out?"

The Joker is watching me with a nasty little smile. I wonder abruptly what he's thinking about, though given that I'm standing next to a hot stove, it doesn't take much imagination. I know there's a considerable part of him that delights in the idea of knocking the pot flying, gripping me hard by the back of the neck and forcing my face down to the open flames, holding me there until my skin starts to sear and bubble.

If there's a threat in his eyes, though, I know there's got to be a challenge in mine. _Do it,_ I think belligerently, looking him steadily in the eye. _Go ahead._ The second he reaches for me, I'll be going for him, too, finding that hole in his leg and jamming a finger into it, or, more crudely, just throwing punches at the entirety of that wounded area until reflex forces him to let me go.

I have no idea how dominant that wicked part of him that wants nothing more than to _hurt_ me is, but he seems fairly adept at pulling it back. Presumably reserving that violence for a time when it will hit harder, hurt more, he says, " _Bat_ man should be taking notes from you."

"Batman doesn't exactly have insider information," I deflect. The Joker makes a thoughtful noise, and I stir the pot in silence for a moment, arranging it all in my head. "Okay, so Maroni is a nasty character," I say at length. "Does he really strike you as the sort of guy who's gonna spend a fortune on his girlfriend's ransom?"

The Joker glances sideways at me and then slides off the counter, passing behind me. I turn my head slightly to keep him in my peripheral view, not trusting him enough to leave my back fully turned. "More importantly," I say quietly, almost to myself, "Do you really think _Victor_ thinks he's the kind of guy who's going to pay up?"

The Joker opens up my refrigerator and starts pilfering casually through it as I finally start to understand the extent of what he's dragged me into this time. If Victor's not in this for the ransom money, if he's already gotten his revenge by killing Maroni's girlfriend, then why is he _really_ here?

 _You son of a bitch,_ I want to scream at the Joker, _you're playing some twisted game of Who's Really Gotham's Most Wanted with_ _ **these**_ _two fucks and you bring_ _ **me**_ _into it?_

I don't, though, because of _course_ he did. He owes me one for that fresh splotch of reddened scar tissue plugging the hole in his knee, and beyond that, he does seem to enjoy sucking me into his orbit right as he's setting up something spectacularly nasty.

"No idea," he says offhandedly to the interior of the fridge, and I narrow my eyes suspiciously, because that hardly sounds like him, not being three steps ahead of everyone else at any given time. Before I can find a strategic way to point this out, though, he steps back, and as the refrigerator door falls closed with a "thunk," he turns towards me, slipping his hands idly into his pockets.

"Why don't you let me worry about Vicky," he says. " _You_ just stick close to me, hmm?"

I eye him mistrustfully. There's a lot going unspoken here. He's got to know that by now, on the lowest and most vital level of my functions, I'm craving his presence, _always_. He also knows that, really, the only thing standing between Victor and me is his protection. Now here he is, offering me both, and I know it's a trap, a distraction from the impending trouble, and the fact that he _wants_ me to be distracted is a bad sign.

In the end, though, I nod, because what else should I do? Post up in a corner with my knife out, just waiting? I've prepared for danger about as much as I possibly can, and now there's practically nothing left to do but wait for the storm to break.

"I need a phone," I say as I turn back to the stove, covering the pot and setting it to a low simmer.

"Oh, you do, huh?" the Joker asks gamely, and lifts an eyebrow when I glance over my shoulder at him. "Why's that?"

"Because I'm scheduled to work tomorrow, and I need to let them know I won't be there. Unless, you know, you feel like talking Victor into letting me work my shift, in which case one of you would have to drop me off, because you threw my fucking keys into the corn," I remind him.

"Well, I wouldn't have had to _do_ that if you weren't _sneaking off,_ " he says reprovingly as he fishes around in his pocket. "Speaking of which, what was _that_ all about? How 'bout a little _trust_ here, huh?"

I snort at that. He pulls a shitty little burner phone from his pocket, snaps his fingers, and points at one of the kitchen chairs. I move obediently to sit, and he hands over the phone.

I'm about the only person I know who still bothers with memorizing phone numbers. It's another thing I should thank (or blame) the Joker for, I figure—I can't get rid of the certainty that someday I'll be in a situation where I need help, and I've got a phone, but not _my_ phone. I dial the number to the restaurant, then, as I put the phone to my ear, I'm a little startled (but mostly just resigned) when the Joker leans forward and rests his chin in the crook of my shoulder, pressing his ear to the opposite side of the phone. Making sure I don't get _cute,_ sure, but at this point, it feels like a formality. He knows full well I'm not going to drag anyone else into this.

A coworker, Hailey, picks up. "Hi, you've reached Guigino's, this is Hailey, how may I help you today?" she asks in that tone of fake cheeriness we all maintain at work.

"Hailey, hey, it's Lilah," I say, putting on my "sick" voice—tired, croaky. "Who's the manager today?"

"Whoa, you don't sound too good," she says, her voice dropping nearly an octave as she realizes it's only me—the Joker lets out a nearly inaudible breath of a laugh right next to me, though I have no idea if it's in response to the voice I put on, the voice _she's_ dropped, or the fake name I've given. "We got Karen today. Want to talk to her?"

"Please."

There's a pause filled only by the background noise of the kitchen, and the Joker shifts a little, impatient. I hear the whisper of his clothing as he moves, then his palm rests against the back of my neck, and he starts petting the shell of my ear with his fingertips. Given that his face is pressed practically against mine and he can't exactly watch for my reaction, I let my eyes slide closed, just for a second.

I've been very careful this time around, careful to compartmentalize my complex Joker shit so I can function wisely while at the same time steering well away from denial. My sexual and romantic attraction to him, so shocking, so horrifying to me last time around, is now just a fact that I accept, firm and unchanging. And, because I'm familiar with his nature, I know that the worst mistake I could make would be to focus unduly on that, to _want_ him too much. He can circumvent the issue, deny it all he likes, but like I said, he wants me too—I have no doubt I wouldn't have made it this far if he didn't.

So we're playing a game. First one to want _too much_ loses. If _I_ lose, I might as well admit to being his dog then and there, something I've been trying to avoid since I realized he might actually be onto something when he said he was my only friend. If _he_ loses, I've got dirt on him, proof that he _does_ give a damn about me, despite the lies and cruelty and bullshit. I can't see it doing me any good in the long run, probably the opposite—if the Joker is proven to have a liability, the first thing he's going to do is get rid of the liability—but the satisfaction, knowing that _I was right, I've always been right_ might just be worth the considerable risk.

I open my eyes, lick my suddenly dry lips, and reach up and back with my free hand, slipping it up into the long hair at the back of his head, then tightening my fist hard till the strands pull taut against my fingers. He makes a noise at that, low and scary, close to a growl, then my manager's voice is blasting too-loud into my ear. "This is Karen."

"Karen, hi, it's Lilah," I say, and I'm proud that I remember to give her the false name, that I even remember to keep the _pity me, I'm sick_ voice going. "I'm, uh—I'm supposed to work tomorrow, right?"

"Yes?" she says warily, automatically on guard—I realize belatedly it's the weekend; she's probably had to field several people calling out "sick" "(read: hungover) already, and I'd feel bad for her because trying to manage a restaurant while understaffed is rough, but the alternative would be worse for everyone.

The Joker moves beside me, and I feel his nose brush the side of my throat, my only warning before his teeth lock hard onto the spot.

I take a shaky breath in, and my fingers come loose from his hair so I can prop that elbow on the tabletop, catching my forehead in my palm as I half-lean, half-fall forward. The Joker obligingly moves with me, bearing down harder once I'm settled so that for a moment, I'm breathless with the pain, pain I hadn't known I liked before I met him, before all _this._ I want to cry out, to release some of the tension building up as a result of the pain rippling electric out from the flesh clenched between his teeth, but Karen speaks again, reminding me what the hell I'm supposed to be doing.

"Lilah?"

"Yeah, so I picked up something nasty," I manage to say, hoping the quiver in my voice does more good than harm. "There's no way I'm going to make it in."

There's a short pause. The Joker's hand slips from the side of my neck, skimming down my side and working its way beneath my shirt. When he draws his jagged nails lightly across the soft skin of my lower stomach, I have to bite my lip until I taste blood to keep from making a sound.

"Whatever it is must have really climbed on top of you," Karen comments at length. "You sound like you're about to cry."

The Joker, experimentally, slips two fingers down into my pants, and immediately, I catch him by the wrist before he can go too far. I don't _want_ him to stop, not really, but there's no way I'll be able to keep up the charade over the phone if he doesn't. He stills his hand, and laughs nearly inaudibly against my neck, just two small hisses of air.

I realize that Karen is waiting for an answer. "You have no idea," I say, unable to quell a short laugh, but fortunately, she seems to read it as rue instead of hysteria.

"Fuck it," she says. "You've never missed a day before, it's fine. I'll bully some of the kids into taking doubles. Get better quick."

"Will do," I say, hearing the strain in my own voice.

The connection breaks. I instantly drop the phone on the table and pull in a deep breath, then let it out again in a sound that's a bit of a sob and a bit of a whimper.

The Joker lets go of me, and I let go of him. The relief from the pain is just as much of a fucking rush as the pain itself, and when he traces the imprints left by his teeth with his tongue, the only thing keeping me from collapsing bonelessly forward onto the table is my pride. A noise that might qualify as a moan escapes me, and when I tilt my head back, the overhead light is blurred—I blink, and am startled to find that tears have formed in my eyes.

The Joker lifts his mouth from my neck—the air is cold on the ring of saliva left there, and the mark aches, throbbing with my heartbeat.

For a second, neither of us moves, and I'm wondering how best to goad him into finishing what he started without showing too much of my hand when he withdraws, sliding his wrist out of my now relaxed grip and leaning over me to collect the phone. Without another word, he leaves the room.

With a hand that I hadn't noticed was shaking, I reach up and touch the skin where he bit me. It's already starting to swell a little, and when I check my fingertips, I see a faint smear of red.

 _I should not be turned on by this._ I sigh, rubbing my thumb against the bloodied fingertips, and stand, carefully, until I'm sure my legs aren't going to buckle beneath me. _Not like it matters._ He's fucking with me again, and if he can switch off at the blink of an eye, like it never happened, then so can I. Hell, I won't even be mad about it—he enjoys my anger too much; I don't want to _reward_ him for being the world's worst tease.

 _We've got time._

Using the first aid kit I keep in the kitchen, I smear Neosporin onto the broken flesh and tape a bandage over it. Then I go to join him.

He's glued to the TV again. When I sit down on the couch beside him, he glances at me out of the corner of his eye, gauging, and I give him my best disarming smile. He licks his lips rapidly, grunts, then looks back at the TV, sprawling a bit so that his thigh presses against mine.

I watch him for a second longer, touching the fresh bandage with a fingertip. I don't know much more than I did an hour ago, especially with regard to where I'll be come dawn. That's okay—he's invited me to stick close to him, he's the center of the action, I'll piece it together sooner or later.

I turn towards the TV, which he's switched from Andy Griffith to, hilariously, _Cops,_ and since he seems to be inviting contact, I tilt my head against his shoulder.

For now, I can wait.

* * *

 **Interlude**

Victor Zsasz is not crazy.

In fact, most of the time he's certain he's the only sane man alive—the only one who can see people for the gangrenous parasites they really are, the rot and death hiding just beneath the surface of the skin.

Because he's decidedly not crazy, he can see why his current behavior might _seem_ crazy to some. Returning to your former employer's watering hole after said employer fired you about as aggressively as possible isn't exactly the wisest move, especially when that employer is Sal Maroni. But he knows what he's doing.

He's got a plan.

Maroni's Italian Restaurant is quiet this time of day—too late for the lunch hour, way too early for the dinner rush. Victor would bet that everyone inside is on Maroni's payroll. Of course, that means he gets clocked immediately on his way in—two of Maroni's enforcers that he knows by sight, if not name, jump him three steps inside the door. He's tempted, so tempted to just set 'em both free then and there, crush the big one's trachea, put a thumb through the little one's eye, then pick up a steak knife from a nearby table and finish him off with a stab wound to the heart, but he knows if he commits a murder in Maroni's precious restaurant—even during off hours—he won't get anywhere, so he just throws some elbows, kicks out a knee, brains one on a corner booth.

He's nearly finished with them when the voice he wants to hear rings out. "Stop."

Everything freezes. Victor looks and sees Maroni standing across the room, near a couple of guys who have their hands hovering threateningly above their coats.

Victor mockingly puts up his hands. "Just want to talk, boss."

Maroni stares at him for a minute. He's leaning on the cane he takes everywhere since the car accident that took his balls, and he probably thinks he looks imposing, but Victor knows. He's rotting just like the rest of them.

Even so, Victor can use him for now.

Maroni appears to reach a conclusion—on his own turf, surrounded by gobs of hired muscle, he's comfortable. He lifts a hand, gestures Victor forward, and turns to head to his private booth. Victor takes a second to smirk at the two guys he's just beaten so thoroughly, then he follows.

He's stopped by a guy just outside of Maroni's booth, searched thoroughly, but he left the knives in his car, and the only thing the guy finds on him is the plastic bag that contains Lucy's gauze-wrapped finger. The guy tosses this on the table in front of Maroni, who eyes it with a faint mixture of curiosity and revulsion. As he takes a seat across from him, Victor says, "The Joker killed your girlfriend. Sorry."

Maroni frowns. He looks down at the bag, and though the finger is wrapped up, there's a little bit of blood showing through anyway, so he puts two and two together. Disgusted, he looks at Victor. "If the _Joker_ killed her, why is it that _you_ have what's presumably a piece of her in that bag?"

"Because he thinks I'm gonna help him trick you into paying ransom for her." Victor bares his teeth a little at the thought, because really, just how stupid does the Joker think he is? Maroni went through two mistresses in just the short months Victor was working for him. Even in the unbelievable event that he doesn't have the means to get the finger checked out and find that it was cut off a corpse, he still isn't gonna shell out millions for someone he sees as just a replaceable bimbo. This plan was fucked from the start, and Victor has no intention of waiting around to get screwed by the Joker just like everyone else the clown's ever worked with.

Hence this little meeting.

Maroni asks, "Why are you here?"

Victor sets an elbow on the table, fiddles with the corner of the plastic. Casually, he says, "To find out what the Joker's head on a platter is worth to you."

Maroni laughs.

Victor grins, too, because he can see why the boss thinks it's funny. Two years ago, the Joker had screwed every big boss in the city, stolen millions, made enemies of every soul in Gotham, including the ones he was supposed to be working alongside. Since then, the entire criminal underworld of the city had been gunning for him, and what did they have to show for it? Nothing but depletion of their numbers, notably in the scheme he'd pulled last Christmas, when baby Falcone had gotten cocky and declared he was going to kill the Joker before the holiday was over. By this time, a lot of the bosses are beginning to give up, finding that the pursuit of revenge is costing them more than they can afford to give.

This puts Victor in an advantageous position, one he's been thinking about ever since the Joker first said "bankroll." Victor doesn't really care about money—with the world in the state it's in, there's no fucking point to just accumulating it, no power to be gained through money in a world that's just full of zombies and rot. Still, while he doesn't have any desire to be _rich,_ having cash on hand undeniably helps—it's a lure, a means to further his endless task. And yeah, maybe that quip the Joker made about living freezing in the sewers hit a little closer to home than Victor would've thought. Whatever the reason, a couple million sounds like a good starting point to him right about now.

Maroni's stopped laughing, but he still wears that smug smile that Victor has wanted to cut off his face from day one. "You're serious," he remarks, sounding amused.

Victor's fist tightens atop the table—he's itching for a knife, doesn't have one on him, but there's a butter knife laid on the place right in front of Maroni that he could make do with, if he had to. He forces himself to remain under control as he says, "He thinks we're allies till this 'kidnapping' thing comes through. I can get the drop on him easily. I just want to see if I should even bother."

Maroni's smile starts to fade, his eyes begin to narrow. He's listening now, but he's still wary, unwilling to believe in what sounds like a deal that's too good to be true. He glances down at the wrapped-up finger, then back at Victor, and suspiciously, he asks, "Who's to say this ain't a trap? You and the clown, coming after me? I wouldn't think of you as the kind of guy who gives up grudges too easy."

"It ain't a trap because you take no risk," Victor answers impatiently. "We agree on a number, I leave here now, I come back in a day or two with the Joker's head in a bag. You pay me, I hand it over, you're Gotham's new undisputed criminal head, cause you did what nobody else could—you got rid of that fuckin' clown."

It's evident by Maroni's expression that he's seduced by the vision Victor's painting for him, albeit reluctantly. Since Falcone went loony, there's been an ongoing power struggle in Gotham's underworld, further shaken up by the Joker each time he kills another big name. Killing the Joker means absorbing his considerable power. No one would challenge the guy who accomplished _that_ feat.

(Technically, that _guy_ would be Victor, but he was willing to let Maroni play overlord on this one till he got paid. Eventually, on his own time, he'd claim his dues, get what was owed him.)

"Sounds too easy," says Maroni slowly, warily. "Why haven't you done it already?"

 _That's_ a million dollar question. Victor has turned it over in his mind a hundred times in the last twenty-four hours, because as much as he's repulsed by everyone, the Joker has to be the worst. The Joker has the distinction of being the only person rotten enough that his outsides match his insides down to the last detail; Victor's wanted to take a knife to him since he first laid eyes on him, sullen and shackled in the back of the SWAT van.

So why isn't the Joker dead yet? At first, the answer was easy: the Joker was driving and claimed to have a safe house outside of the city and Victor needed a place to rest, so he figured he could put up with the clown's prattle and jabs for an hour before cutting him to pieces.

Then he saw her: that pretty little redhead, with all those miles of clean, freckled skin; met her eyes from across the front yard and saw the emptiness there. Even at the beginning, he knew it was a task of the utmost importance to free her from this pisspot of a rotting world, and that conviction only grew as he realized that somehow, this little zombie was all tangled up with the _Joker_ —that mouthy, excruciating piece of shit.

That slowed him down a little bit. Despite the act he puts on when he can't immediately free the zombies, Victor isn't stupid—he knows the Joker will probably prove difficult to kill, given his history. Throwing another one into the mix normally wouldn't necessitate further planning (Victor's job is easy enough, there's only so much blood loss a person can take), but in a situation as potentially fraught as this one, Victor saw the wisdom in taking a step back, in reassessing.

So, while he figures out the best way to take them both out, Victor has been resting and watching. He thinks he's done a pretty good job of playing simple mob grunt for them—the girl isn't hiding the fact that she thinks he's an idiot, and the Joker, too, is starting to look faintly exasperated whenever Victor opens his mouth, though _he_ knows more of Victor's history and should know better (and Victor sure as hell isn't taking for granted that he doesn't).

It was during this period of reconnaissance that Victor first concluded he should really pick them off one at a time. The girl doesn't seem like much of a threat, small as she is, but she seems possessive of the Joker in the same, inexplicable, aggressive way he seems possessive of her— _poor dead girl_ —and he has no doubt she'll make a nuisance of herself if he goes after the clown in her presence. Same for the Joker if he lays a finger on her while he's near. Victor has no doubt his opportunities will present themselves eventually, even if he has to wait till he and the clown have left the safehouse, slaughter the Joker on the road, and turn back for the girl.

In the meantime, since he was in town to arrange a deal with Maroni _anyway,_ he figured he might as well get on it. Of course, by this point, he was deviating far from the _original_ plan—he and the Joker had talked it through, agreed that he'd come to town, hunt down one of the guys he'd worked with when he'd been in Maroni's employ, deliver the finger along with a message outlining the situation for the guy to pass on to Maroni, then scram before they could make the car or track him back out of town.

 _Yeah, fuck that._

Victor looks Maroni in the eye now and says, clearly, "Didn't want to do it without some guarantee. If I kill him and nobody wants to pay for the job, I'm a chump. I figured, given our history, I should give you the first option here, but if you ain't interested, I'll go see what Sionis thinks."

As Victor suspected, the mention of his up-and-coming-rival makes Maroni antsy, and he puts out his hand, signaling for Victor to wait. His eyes are narrowed; he's still not sold, but he's a businessman, and by sheer, greedy instinct he doesn't want to let a potentially good deal slip out of his hands and into an enemy's.

Finally, he says, "Okay. So we'll see. You bring me the clown's head, I'll have five million for you, no questions asked. _Just_ his head, though—you two come in here trying to pull the shit he did with Gambol, my guys'll mow you down without blinking. Fair deal?"

Actually, it's not all that fair, and Victor knows it—the Joker's head is probably worth four times that much by now with all the enemies he's made and the damage he's done, but again, Victor has no use for greed. Five million will suit him just fine.

"Fair deal," he says. They don't shake hands, just eyeball one another with mutual mistrust and dislike. Victor brings a fist down on the tabletop, getting a fair bit of satisfaction from the way the noise makes a few of the grunts twitch towards their guns, and gets to his feet.

"I'll be in touch," he says, and then he leaves the restaurant.

Outside, the sun has disappeared behind gray clouds, the first of a heavy bank rising up from the south. Victor feels a pleasant shiver run down his spine and checks his watch.

He's been gone for too long already. He doesn't care. The clown will keep for another hour, and Victor wants to hunt.

* * *

 **A/N** : Victor Zsasz: I am _not_ crazy.  
Victor Zsasz: *proceeds to think and just generally be completely bananas*

And yeah, I stole the name of the restaurant Emma works at from the one the gang is always terrorizing in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, because I have no control over my life.

Hey quick question, but apart from the Joker, what are some of you guys's favorite villains? It doesn't even have to be all-time faves, just one that stuck out to you or that you thought was super effective. I'm curious.

Next up: Victor gets back. Emma realizes something troubling. See you next week!


	6. vi

**VI**

Night is beginning to fall, and Victor still hasn't come back.

It's been an unnerving couple of hours in that it's been entirely uneventful. We've been drifting back and forth, grazing on the chili, lounging on the couch, waiting the day out.

I hate waiting.

 _Cops_ shifted into _Beetlejuice_ , which, judging by the Joker's level of focus and the muttered syllables I can't make any sense of, he seems to enjoy.

He's got one arm around me, elbow braced on my shoulder, forearm out straight and hand hanging loose, and I'm just reflecting on how weird the pose is for him, how casual and jocky, when I spot the ring of bruises around his wrist.

They're fresh, still blue, finger-shaped. I stare for a second before it clicks that I put them there, grabbing his arm at the table, much harder than I'd realized.

 _I should not be turned on by that,_ I think for the second time today.

I'm suddenly uncomfortable with his proximity, afraid that somehow he'll be able to hear what I'm thinking, the way he seems to do so often. Without offering an explanation, I rise and leave the room, and I can feel his stare burning away at the back of my neck.

I go outside to the back porch to look out across the cornfields, towards the swollen red sun collapsing into the horizon. It's a still evening, a little bit chillier than it's been lately, and I'm trying to figure out if it's my personal situation that makes the weather seem ominous or if it's really… just ominous, when the door snicks quietly open behind me.

It's not Victor, I know it, I'd have heard the car return, but I can't shake the creeping feeling that it _could_ be, so I glance over my shoulder anyway. It's the Joker, as expected, and as he shuts the door gently, I face forward again and point.

"Sun's as red as I've ever seen it," I tell him, and then fold my arms tight against the chill. "Looks like a big storm's on the way."

"Well, isn't that convenien _t_ ," he says as he comes to stand at the railing behind me, squinting at the sun.

I turn to keep him in my sights, pressing my hip into the rail. "You claiming responsibility for the weather?"

He sucks his teeth and regards me slyly from the corner of his eye. I chuckle—he plays rakish so well, good in general, even better for me because I'm willing to see it—and neglect to tell him that controlling the weather is among the least of the abilities I'd attribute to him if I ever let myself think about it for too long.

We stand there for a minute, not touching, him looking at the sunset, me looking at him. In the past, I've been grateful for moments like these, the eye of a hurricane, but not anymore, it seems. I can't shake that restless feeling, the craving to know what's going to happen.

The Joker straightens abruptly, cracks all the knuckles on his left hand at once with his right palm, repeats the move on the other side, and announces, "This place is makin' me antsy."

 _Oh, yeah?_ I think, cocking an amused eyebrow. _How's_ _ **that**_ _feel?_ "How so?" I say out loud.

"Yeah, it's too…" He screws up his face, a grimace of distaste as he hunts for the word—" _quiet._ " He looks at me then, and he must read the half-smile on my face as bemusement, because he says, "Y'know, peaceful?"

I shake my head, a knee-jerk response to that tone of his that says _quiet_ and _peaceful_ are _bad_ things, but if I'm being honest with myself, I understand what he means. The serenity of this place has been good, a nice dose of sensory deprivation while I healed and waited, but now that he's back, the calm itches; it rankles.

"I miss the city." I don't realize I've said it aloud until his expression turns, some blend of predatory and pleased.

"Wanna go back?" he asks brightly before I have a chance to pull back or change the subject.

I laugh. "It's not that simple—"

" _Sure_ it is," he counters. "We go hunting, find the keys to your car. _You_ drive, _I_ get shotgun—we're back in Gotham in a couple'a hours. No more marshals. No more Vicky. Just us, huh?"

I'm suddenly aware that his voice, quiet, so light and unassuming that it makes me suspicious, is the only sound I can hear, and I'm not sure if the wind has really gone still or if my brain is just hyper-focused, drowning out the ambient noise. He's staring at me with an intensity I typically only see when sheer willpower is the only thing keeping his plans from crumbling, or when someone's about to die, and I realize he's waiting for an answer.

I have to force myself to speak, and when I _do,_ my voice is low, quieter even than his. "You'd do that? Just… ditch this plan of yours, whatever you're up to with… Maroni, with Victor, and run away with me?" The last bit is meant to sound mocking, to highlight the absurdity of the idea, but I hear it fall flat even as I speak it out loud.

He doesn't break eye contact, not for a second. His voice drops into its lowest register, same way it does when he's pushing a particularly earnest point, and he says, "In a _heartbeat._ "

He won't stop staring at me, and in truth, I can't break my gaze, either. He's standing at the rail a foot away from me, but all at once it feels like he's pressed flush against me, in front of me, behind me, like I'm breathing him, his presence is so overwhelming. It takes me a long moment to really get my head around what he's offering, and once I do, I know with absolute certainty that he's lying.

Maybe not in a way that would be immediately obvious. He might just pack me up like he's offering, take me down to the city and forget about Victor, but I don't believe for a second it would be some Bonnie and Clyde escapade, fun and games and romping around Gotham—when has it ever been with him? No, if he's abandoning _this_ plan, it means he's not _abandoning_ it at all, just… trading up. I have no doubt that if I return to the city with him, within the hour he'll be putting something else into motion, something involving me, bigger and more complex and much, _much_ worse. Hell, it might even be the plot he's been angling for all along, this Victor nonsense just a way to nudge me into a position where I might consent to it. This isn't some declaration of love—it's just the groundwork for another one of his schemes.

Knowing that, though, doesn't really make me any more inclined to say no. In fact, even knowing it's a lie, a trap, I'm tempted to say yes— _yes,_ because it would end this _stillness,_ this interminable period of waiting. Things always go bad with him sooner or later, it's not like I could avoid it by giving him the "right" answer here and now.

 _But,_ I think, looking into his eyes until I almost can't see them anymore, can't really see anything but the black; _but. Saying yes isn't exactly going to win me this game we're playing. Don't be the one who wants the most, remember?_ Even though _he_ was the one to make the offer, he's doubtless got an ulterior motive, is driven by something aside from any desire for me, whereas I… well, I can't shake the feeling that if I say yes, we'll both know it's simply because I want to leave here with him.

I can't justify rolling over so easily. Still, I'm finding it hard to force out the words— _no, I don't think so_ —and in the next second, I don't have to, because a sound cuts through the unnatural stillness: a car motor, clear as day.

The Joker's eyelids flicker—not a blink, just a prolonged sort of twitch, but it serves to break the stare that's been binding us for the past long moment, and he mutters, "Too late."

He pushes away from the railing, turns, and heads back inside, and I feel the urge to apologize—an idiotic urge, one that I throttle and bury deep in an instant as I trail behind him. It's not like he _needs_ me to agree to going with him, anyway. I've got the history to prove it.

I trail into the house behind him, following him to the post he takes by the front door. I read his body language: arms tightly crossed, jaw jutting out in a convincing display of quiet anger that I'm convinced is a façade, and after a moment of thinking it through, I realize why, coincidentally the minute Victor walks through the door and stops dead at the sight of the two of us waiting for him.

I'm just missing the housecoat and curlers. It's a scene straight out of an 80s teen movie, with Victor cast in the role of rebellious teenager, and I suddenly find it prudent to hide my mouth behind my sleeve as the Joker demands, "And just where have _you_ been?"

Victor's initial reaction to seeing us strikes me as odd—he doesn't look startled or guilty to find us blocking his path, though I wouldn't say he seems like he was expecting us, either. His eyes don't even catch on the Joker: they slide straight over to me and they stay there as his shoulders unhitch, like the sight of me is somehow a relief to him. "Got held up," he says, almost gently, not breaking eye contact.

The Joker doesn't appear to like this. Deliberately, he steps in front of me, breaking Victor's eye line—and mine, which comes as a relief, because I'd been feeling a little trapped staring into his murky brown eyes, a deer in headlights. With his voice pitched low and level and terrifying, the Joker asks, "Held up _how_?"

"Hey, what the fuck is this?" _There's_ the belligerent tone I recognize, and I peek around the Joker's shoulder to see that Victor has tucked away that weird, empty calm—his chin is jutting out belligerently again; that piggish, angry light is back in his eyes. "Am I on trial here?"

"Not at _all,_ " the Joker assures him, though his tone is _saturated_ in sarcasm, and I carefully brace my forefinger and thumb against his elbow, squeezing, a warning I know he'll ignore. _You're showing your hand._ He jerks his elbow a little, communicating that he doesn't appreciate the touch, and I let go as he adds, "We're just all in the same handbasket here, Vicky, see? I want to make sure you aren't _shitting_ in it."

 _No, no,_ _ **no,**_ I think, though I manage to keep from saying it out loud, screwing my eyes shut and tipping my forehead against the back of his shoulder—the heat of him has soaked through; the cloth is warm against my cool skin. _**Why**_ _would you let him know you suspect him of anything? Are you_ _ **trying**_ _to put him on his guard?_

(Knowing the Joker, _probably_.)

"For your information, I picked up a tail," Victor says petulantly. "I had to deal with it."

"Ahh," says the Joker, chock-full of false understanding. "So is it… uh… _dealt with_?"

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't," Victor rumbles, and shoulders past us, heading to the den. The Joker lets him pass unchecked, and as soon as he's gone, I slip out from behind my cover. The Joker catches me by the arm before I get too far.

"Anything to contribute?" he wants to know, quirking an eyebrow up in a way I can either read as amusement or warning.

"No," I answer, telling the truth—I'm right in the middle of this game, I know it and I have _opinions_ about it, but I know full well that voicing those opinions isn't going to do me a bit of good. This is going to fall exactly the way he wants it to, just like it always does.

His tongue flashes out to lap at the corner of his mouth, and he nods a little, like he'd been expecting the answer. "Kay. Then maybe you should go upstairs, huh?"

 _Ugh. More fucking waiting._

Still, Victor unsettles me enough that I'm not exactly going to argue for more time hanging around with him. I just nod back and venture to say, "I hope you know what you're doing."

He squints playfully at me and says, "I'm about… _sixty_ percent sure of myself."

I tilt my head and narrow my eyes. "You're not funny."

"I'm _kinda_ funny." I _really_ don't want to smile at that, don't want to encourage him, but my lips twitch despite myself, and he pokes the corner of my mouth pointedly and triumphantly.

I swat his hand away. "So anyway. Upstairs." I glance over my shoulder towards the doorway to the living room where Victor disappeared, then look back up at the Joker. "Good luck with… all _that._ "

"Aww," he growls affectionately, like he's touched by the sentiment, and brushes past me in lieu of any parting words.

I decide it's high time I left the bad men to their nefarious mind games, so I retreat up to my room, closing the door and turning the lock. Might buy me a couple of seconds should one of them come to kick the door in.

I end up settling in the little TV nook, figuring it's as good a time as any to check in on Gotham, see if anyone has any idea where Victor and the Joker have gotten off to. I turn the channel to GCN and mute the sound.

There's a quiet knock on the door.

I blink. "Who is it?" I call out.

"Uh. _Me,_ " the Joker answers, like it was a stupid question.

 _Whatever, Victor might not creep_ _ **him**_ _out but I'm not taking chances,_ I think grumpily, getting up and crossing the room. I get my knife in my hand before opening the door just a crack, prepared for the possibility that it's Victor sneaking around and putting on a voice, but it's the Joker, looking irritated that I made him wait all of five seconds. He shoves at the door, knocking me back a few inches, and pushes his way in.

I shake my head irritably. _Hell of a mood swing._ "That was fast," I comment, closing the door behind him and locking it again.

He swings around, peering at me from beneath lowered brows. "Uh. What."

"When you told me to head up here, I thought you and Victor had, you know, tough guy business to discuss."

He's still pinning me with that intimidating glower, but it relaxes a little as he probes the inside of a scar thoughtfully with his tongue. He doesn't answer, and he doesn't need to, because in another second, I've placed the problem.

The light outside the window is gone; it's full dark. My alarm clock reads 9:05 PM.

My jaw drops before I can think to stop it. The Joker takes a step towards me, almost unconsciously, like he can't quite resist the sight of my distress, even if he can't place the source. "Somethin' wrong, Em?"

"I, uh…" My hand drifts up to my neck, worrying the bandage there. "I… um…"

"You, uh, you, uhm," he repeats mockingly, drawing even nearer and tilting his face close over mine. "… _what_?"

I drop my eyes, finding it a little too challenging to hold his gaze and tell the difficult truth I've just grasped all at once. "So, I might have just lost like… an hour and a half of time," I mutter to the floor. I'm going for casual and unaffected, but it comes out just sounding brittle.

There's a beat of quiet, almost unbearable, then his fingers slide under my chin and he turns my face up to his. Though I can see he's arranged his features in a facsimile of sympathy, there's a spark in his eyes, delight he can't quite hide. "Kinda unsettling the first time it happens, isn't it?" he asks after another moment.

 _Keep control,_ I think, looking into his eyes. _Don't give him the satisfaction._ My lips part in preparation for speech, and I realize I have nothing to say—I pull in a deep breath instead, hoping it'll give me some semblance of stability.

The Joker laughs once, a high-pitched little " _hmm_ ," and leans forward, pressing a kiss to my cheek, halfway on the corner of my mouth.

He lingers, and I know he's just eating this up, but I still feel the urge to turn my head, catch him full on the mouth. We've been tiptoeing around this for too long, and my hand drifts up, fingertips feathering across the puckered flesh of his scar.

I drop my hand, release a shaking breath. The urge is there, but it's easily overpowered by my dismay over the missing time, not to mention my determination not to be the one to escalate this. The Joker, reading the signal, pulls away after a noisy smack, looking for all intents and purposes like he _hadn't_ been out to tempt me, and I brush his hand away, gently enough that he can't read it as defiance, and slide away from him, eyes downcast. "Yeah," I murmur, "unsettling."

He stands still, letting me go, and I think it's high time I check up on my various injuries. If nothing else, it'll give me something else to think about for a few minutes.

In front of the bathroom mirror, I count my wounds. Their number is surprisingly small—this much time in the Joker's company and I'm usually suffering head injuries, minor hearing loss, ugly bruises from head to toe. This time, I have a solid four: the finger-shaped bruising on my arms from the Joker's hold on me last night, a tender but invisible spot on my forehead from where Victor tossed me into the wall, the bite, and the cut on my hand.

I unwrap the bandage around this last, checking to see how the healing process is going. It's raw and red, angry-looking, but it's not bloody, and it doesn't hurt, aside from the expected residual tenderness. So far, no infection. It's definitely going to leave a nasty scar, I'll give him that.

I smear it with more ointment and wrap up my hand. Indulging a faintly masochistic urge, I poke at the sensitive spot on my forehead, wince at the flash of pain, shrug at my reflection, and leave it alone, grateful that it doesn't show—no swelling, no marks.

Lastly, I peel the bandage away from my neck. _Yep,_ I think in resigned dismay at the sight of it, _that's about what I expected._ It's always just a matter of time before he sinks his teeth into me.

I set about disinfecting the mark, all those little puncture wounds embedded in the crushed, purpling flesh. I brush a soapy washcloth across the spot, then my eyes stray as I pick up on motion in the mirror—the Joker, stepping smoothly into my line of sight a few feet behind me. He says something low, something I can't make out.

"What's that?" I ask, staring at his reflection. "Didn't quite catch it."

He tilts his head back, glancing up at the ceiling, and for a second, I catch sight of a smile that looks real, then he turns his head towards me. "I said you're cracking, Emma."

I stare for a second, then say, "Oh" and go back to tending to my neck.

The Joker, though, has never been one to wait around for an invitation to speak his mind, so he tucks his hands in his pockets, angles his shoulders in my direction, and goes on. "Which, you know, _hon_ estly took, uh, longer than I'd anticipated, but we got there in the end, that's the important part." He presses his lips together, frowning thoughtfully into the middle distance as he nods to himself. I pause to watch him, wondering how long he'll stay lost in thought, but after just a second he sucks in a breath of air and goes on: "What takes _me_ a little off-guard, Em, is that you don't seem to _mind._ "

I chuckle low in my throat, realizing suddenly what's going on—or a part of it, at least. The less I refuse to engage, the more he prods at me, trying to flip that switch, to make me fight him. Showing up here in the first place, bringing Victor, slicing me open, Lucille Rossi's hand, this whole baffling game he's playing with Victor, now poking at my mental state—it's all the kind of shit that would have had me up in arms in a heartbeat last time around, lashing out viciously and hard to keep from being dragged along or forced to face uncomfortable truths.

He has the most fun when I'm fighting back. By his standards, I've been no fun at all this time around, and he's poking around to figure out _why_.

Of course, if he wanted to, he could _make_ me fight him, and I'm sure he's slowly escalating things to that point where I'll have no choice, but for now, he still seems mostly curious, like a shark bumping at the legs of a hapless scuba diver, testing, waiting for panic or the smell of blood. I suspect that's because for the moment, he and I are playing with the same objective: _pretend not to care._

He's been so remarkably quiet this whole time that I know it won't last. The hole in his leg probably took the edge off his need to be the world's most horrible person at any given time, but given the way he was moving around today, he's not going to be out of the game for long.

 _However long it is,_ I think, drying off my neck and reaching for a bandage, _I hope he'll let me have at least one more night of relative peace,_ because I'm really tired all of a sudden, whether it's from only getting a few hours of shitty closet-sleep or from—apparently—starting to lose my mind in earnest.

"Somethin' funny?" he asks in reply to my quiet laughter, hands still in his pockets, looking as benevolent as he's capable of looking.

I reach up with an index finger, tapping his image in the mirror. "Lookin' at it," I say, and okay, maybe I'm _not_ as tired as I feel, because it's a hell of a time for self-destructive tendencies to show up.

Fortunately, he doesn't take the bait. He turns full towards me, starts prowling up behind me, and as he moves, he says, "Hey, Em."

"Mm," I half-reply, focusing on getting a bandage over the spot on my neck.

"I was thinkin', and I _realized…_ I never told you how I got these scars, did I?"

 _Oh. That old chestnut._ I see a faint smile appear on my mouth unbidden, because I'd been wondering when—or _if_ —this topic would come up. News reports claimed it was part of his MO (or one of his MOs, anyway), a stunt witnessed and reported by the occasional trauma-stricken survivor. He's never given me one of his stories, and I've never asked him, and even now that he seems to be offering, I find I'm not particularly curious about what lie he's come up with.

Instead of taking the bait, I double-check that the bandage is where it's supposed to be and that it'll stay. The Joker keeps creeping up closer, and I finally turn around when he's close enough to touch.

Which I do, reaching up and touching the deep, short scar intersecting his full bottom lip, and if he was anyone but who he is, I swear he would have jumped. Instead, he just looks at me, eyes gleaming dark with curiosity, and I answer him: "Tell you the truth, I'm more interested in how you got _this_ one."

He reaches up and grabs my hand, pulling it away from his face, down between our chests, but doesn't let it go. He frowns and says, "That's a _boring_ story."

I angle my head, studying the scar. "Looks like it hurt."

"Mm."

"Did it bleed a lot?"

" _Mm,_ " he hums idly, reaching up with his free hand and brushing a few stray wisps of hair away from my jaw, but I refuse to be distracted.

"How'd you get it? Same as the others?" I press.

He sighs and answers—quick, perfunctory, like he's humoring a child: "Daddy's ring caught me on the backhand."

"You're right, that _is_ boring." He pauses, then bends a little closer, as though he's not sure he heard me right. _Must have been expecting sympathy,_ I think, and at the thought, I crinkle my eyes mischievously at him. _Looking in the wrong place, buddy._

His fingers flatten along the line of my jaw, thumb pressing lightly at the front of my windpipe: not keeping me from breathing freely, not yet, but a hair's breadth away. I feel my free hand drifting down in response, landing lightly—as if guided—on the injured part of his leg. His gaze doesn't flicker a bit at the touch, and between us, his hand stays clasped tightly around mine.

I give it a second, waiting for him to advance the situation, make some kind of move. When he does nothing but breathe, I whisper a question: "Is it time?"

I think it takes him off-guard. He blinks once, hard, then twice more in rapid succession, like he's just waking up. The problem, I think, is not that he doesn't know what I'm asking—it's that he _does,_ and wasn't expecting it.

I watch his eyes as they seem to blacken, never once leaving mine, and we stay like that for a minute, not even breathing, suspended in stillness. Then, he uncurls his fingers, lifts both his hands from me, and asks, "You got a laptop, Em?"

 _Well, I guess that's as good an answer as any._ I close my eyes, just for a second, drawing a steadying breath, and my hand drifts away from the injured spot on his leg, moving backwards to brace against the sink. I meet his gaze again and say, calmly, "Yeah. Out in the room. Help yourself."

He licks his lips, nods a little, then turns stiffly and walks out, leaving me alone. As soon as I'm clear of him, I turn around, face the mirror again, watch the backs of his shoulders until they disappear around the corner, then I shrug, shake it all off, and reach for my toothbrush. If he's not planning anything exciting for tonight, then I'm going to get some sleep—I can feel the strain of the day in my shoulders, my eyelids, and anyway, it'll give me something to do besides just more _waiting._

I go about getting ready for bed, pretending that he's not even here—better yet, pretending that we're just some average everyday suburban couple. I stifle a snort as I pass back into the bedroom to get something to sleep in, glancing over at the armchair he's taken over, slouched down with the blue glow from my laptop lighting up his face. _He'd probably hate that thought._ I get a flash of vision, a mini-montage of a hypothetical life in true 50s sickly-sweet television style, white picket fence and cherub-babies and all, and I shudder. _Then again, I'm not too keen on it, either._

I get some sweats and a tank top and return to the bathroom for a shower, going through the motions mechanically, half asleep already. I get out, dry off, dress, and towel off my hair until it's half dry, trying carefully not to think about anything and mostly succeeding, though one notion slips past my defenses ( _what if hours are going by, have gone by while I'm in here, I'll step out and a day will be gone_ ) before I crush it down.

When I emerge, though, a look at the clock tells me it's not yet 10 PM—for now, time is trickling by just as it should. I rub a few stray drops away from the back of my neck, then toss my towel over the top of the door to dry and head towards the bed.

As I pass the Joker's chair, he reaches out without looking away from the computer screen and catches my wrist.

I pause. My brain is already in bed, eyes half shut at the mere thought of sleep, so it takes me a second to drag my attention back to where it needs to be. He's still frowning at the computer, and I glance at it, expecting to see GCN, maybe an article that would give us some indicator as to what Victor was doing all day—but no, it's the Wikipedia article on Batman, and the Joker appears to be editing in scare quotes ( _Batman is a "costumed" vigilante active in Gotham City_ , _wanted for the "murder" of Harvey Dent_ , and more of the like).

I can't help but snort at the sight— _well, I'm glad he's making productive use of his time, at least_ —and again, I feel a fairly worrying rush of affection for him. Still not bothering to look at me, he draws my hand close, placing it on his cheek and rubbing almost absently into it, and the feeling of the raised, rippled flesh of his scars rough against my open palm jolts me, prompts a shock of startled feeling in my chest that quickly sinks and warms till it's pooling low in my stomach.

I blame the sleep deprivation.

My weary state might also explain why, no matter how hard I stare at the top of his head, I can't seem to make his skull crack open and reveal to me what he's thinking, what his game is. The length of this truce is unprecedented, baffling; for the life of me I can't understand what he thinks he's accomplishing in behaving so mildly towards me.

Maybe he's trying to make me crack under the weight of the tension. It's true that this whole ordeal is making me antsy and bemused, but he's going to have to push a lot harder if his end goal is a _reaction._

I relax, rubbing the pad of my index finger against the spot on his jaw just beneath his ear, feeling the roughness of currently-invisible stubble coming in on the healthy skin there. He's still focused on the computer and not looking at me, so it's easy to say, "You should take a look at your leg when you get a minute. Change the bandages and make sure infection isn't creeping in, y'know?"

He makes a low, grumbling sound in his throat, some kind of acknowledgement or dismissal of the suggestion, and experimentally, I tug on my hand to see if he'll let me go.

His grip tightens—eyes still fixed on the screen, he turns his face, scraping it along until his mouth rests in the dip of my hand rather than his cheek, and he inhales through his nose, deep and long, taking in the scent of warm, clean flesh. His eyelids slide shut, slow, for just a second, then he turns away again, simultaneously loosening his grip and letting me slide my hand through his until I'm free.

I walk away from him immediately, because I don't want to. I want to reach out and touch him again, this time of my own volition, and that urge is dangerous, so I cut it off before I can really be tempted to give in to it. I turn off the overhead light, reasoning that if he wants light he can just switch it back on (he doesn't), and climb into bed, turning on my side to face him.

He appears to be focused entirely on the computer, brows furrowed slightly in concentration, his face cast in shadow to an unsettling effect by the light from the laptop, barely keeping the darkness of the room at bay.

Feeling grit on the back of my eyelids, I stare at him, and I drift.

* * *

 **A/N** \- Mostly filler this time around, but maybe that's for the best, since next time, shit hits the fan.

Anon Reviewer Charlotte, make an account! Your list of villains is phenomenal and I'm all about them (Jareth, John Ryder, and Andrew Scott's Moriarty are so GOOD; Hannibal's a classic favorite, and you made me think too about Jackson Rippner from Red Eye, who was/is an early favorite of mine).

Thanks for the love and I'll be back next week!


	7. vii

**VII**

I sit in a bathtub, fully clothed, warm water up to my shoulders, and I keep my eyes on the Joker.

His back is turned to me, and he's stooping in the corner, leaning over something. I stare at the soft blue fabric of the shirt stretched taut across the backs of his shoulders, and I try to be very still and very quiet.

"What _you_ have to decide," he says, picking up the train of the conversation, "is how _committed_ you are."

 _Maybe if I hold perfectly still, he'll forget I'm here,_ I think, but no such luck—after a silence of a few moments, there's a lash of movement and he's looking suddenly over his shoulder at me.

I flinch away from the creeping sense of dread his stare plants in me. Suddenly, it seems wiser to answer than to stay silent. "Who said anything about commitment?"

It's an attempt at a joke. He turns away, and I see his shoulders twitch, hear a soft huffing sound—laughter. His elbow juts out, trembles some, and then there's a wet _squelch_ of a sound, and he glances back at me.

"You are, you know," he says, wrinkling his nose emphatically. " _Committed_. In heart, if nothing else."

" _Heart,_ " I whisper. "You're one to talk about that."

He shrugs, looking away again. "Just cause I don't have one doesn't mean I never _did_."

I looked down at my hands, clasped together beneath the surface and warped by the rippling water. "Doesn't seem like I have much of a choice."

His head twitches to the side in polite disagreement. "Oh, you always have a choice," he mumbles, and there's another one of those sickly ripping sounds, he grunts, and repeats, more singsong, "You aaaaaall-ways have a choice. You can stop—" another wet sound, quicker this time—"or… you can _go_."

He straightens up a bit, bouncing on the balls of his feet and turning towards me. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbows and the skin there is spattered with blood; he's wearing those rubbery purple gloves cut off at the wrist and he's holding something I can't see. "So what'll it be, Emma? You ready to stop?"

I stare at him for what feels like a long time, until finally he sniffs, rubbing his nose on the back of his bared forearm, leaving behind a smear of blood. "It's your choice," he prods impatiently.

"Yeah. _Mine._ That means I don't have to make it right now."

"Mm," he says, tilting his head and screwing up his face doubtfully.

I find it difficult to hold his gaze any longer and drop my eyes again, glancing across the surface of the water, down to the white base of the tub, where something catches my eye—a little red ribbon, floating up from the bottom.

The Joker speaks. "But it's not just _one_ choice, is it? It's a _series_ of them, one right after the other. Don't start reaching out for what you want _now,_ and you'll _slide_ downhill to the point where you'll be choosing between… mm, rock and a hard place. You lose either way."

I'm hardly hearing him. I don't want to, but my hand moves almost of its own volition, drifting lazily through the warm water, cutting through that red trail, following it to its source—something small and hard and sharp on the bottom of the tub. I palm it instinctively and feel my stomach drop as I recognize the sensation of it against my palm.

I hear the Joker move, and I turn my eyes to him, following his movement as he finally stands and turns fully towards me, looming impossibly tall, his shoulders braced against the ceiling. The object he was bent over sits limp in the corner, cast in shadow, and I can't make out anything except… _is that hair_?

"Pulling out the teeth of an adult takes a lot of effort," the Joker says conversationally, shuffling towards me, and I finally see what he's holding in his hand—a pair of pliers, bloodied along with his glove and his arm. "Even for a, uh… strapping guy like me. But the teeth of a _child?_ "

My closed hand tightens instinctively; I feel a piercing pain in my palm. I glance at his other hand—closed tight, just like mine.

He's still drawing closer, but waits for me to look back at his face before giving me his familiar grin, closing his eyes in a display of bliss. "Like squeezing a _blackhead,_ " he confides in me. "Few seconds of tension, and then… _pop._ "

He's getting closer, but I can't move. I'm frozen in place; the surface of the water doesn't as much as quiver. He's close enough to touch before he crouches down again, this time right next to me, drops the pliers, dips his hand into the tub and ever-so-gently takes my wrist. He doesn't have to pry my fingers open—they come loose as soon as he presses on them, and he pushes the contents of his other hand into my palm to join their fellow.

My head is turned away from him by now, but I can tell he's looking at me, leaning near—I can feel his breath on the side of my neck when he says, "I'm giving you a gift."

I don't answer. He closes my fingers over the slippery teeth, then tilts his forehead against my cheek.

We rest like this for a moment. Then, he lets go of my hand, moving to place his palm flat against my breastbone, and he pushes.

I slide under the calm, warm water without a fight.

I open my eyes.

I'm lying in my bed, and sickly gray light streams in through the window—morning, overcast. I must have slept hard, because I'm lying on my side exactly like I was when I fell asleep, facing the chair where the Joker had been.

The Joker's nowhere in sight. Instead, sitting in the chair he's vacated, is Victor Zsasz.

The sight of him wakes me _right_ up, but I think I play it off pretty well. I don't jump, I don't gasp, I just blink, and then I say, "I thought I told you to stay downstairs."

He leans forward; the chair creaks beneath his weight. "Sorry," he says simply. "I got a bad memory."

I narrow my eyes at him. Something's off, and it's not just the unbalanced feeling I automatically get in response to his presence in my bedroom.

I pull myself upright, carefully, watching to make sure my movement doesn't prompt some display of aggression from him, but he just sits quietly, tracking me with his eyes. Once I'm sitting up, my back braced against the headboard and in a much better position to move quickly if he attacks, I look him in the eye and ask, "Where's the Joker?"

"Running errands," he says after a brief pause.

My eyes widen. "Are you serious?"

"Of course. I went yesterday, it's his turn today. It's only fair."

 _Ohhhhh, this is bad. This is bad, this is bad, this is bad._ Best case scenario, Victor's lying and the Joker's somewhere in the house, but even if that's true—which I doubt—he obviously doesn't care about Victor getting too close to me, so it's not like I can expect help from his quarter. In truth, though, I believe Victor. I knew the Joker was going to throw me to the wolf from practically the moment they showed up. I just didn't know _when._

My heart's pounding like crazy, pumping adrenaline through me, but I try not to show it. _Alone in the house with a serial killer. Perfect._ Around this time, I figure out what's weird about Victor (apart from pretty much everything). All that restless, impatient thuggishness he's displayed from day one is gone, vanished without a trace. In place of the agitated glint in his flat brown eyes is something more unsettling, something restful and empty. I realize all at once that I've been reading him wrong this entire time, and an icy finger of fear jabs at my spine.

"Get out of my room." The words spill out before I can consider rephrasing them, couching them in something less like an order, and I realize it doesn't matter anyway—I don't think he's the kind of guy to be swayed from his purpose by a bit of sweet-talking. _Whatever that purpose might be._

He rises from the chair, and I instinctively pull my feet up, drawing as much of my body further away from him as I can. He notices, and a smile flickers across his face, eerily indulgent, and puts up his hands, like he's trying not to startle a skittish animal. "No problem," he says in gentle tones that make me scowl openly at him. "Only you should come downstairs. Y'know—when you're ready. There's something you should see."

And he leaves.

I wait for the sound of his footsteps to fade, and then I vault off the bed and cross the room, closing the door as quietly as I can and turning the lock. I back away from the door, treading as softly as I can and half-expecting to hear Victor coming back up the hall, to see the door rattle and splinter in its frame as he slams against it.

Nothing. He's not coming back—not right away, anyway. I realize my hands are shaking, and rub them irritably against my thighs, trying to scrape the nervousness off. _Options,_ I think; _what are my options?_

An idea arrives almost immediately. _The cops._ I've avoided calling them thus far, I haven't been in a position where calling them would yield any desirable outcomes, but the game has changed. I never signed on for being stuck alone in a house with Victor Zsasz. Certainly, when it all shakes out, I'll have a lot of explaining to do, and it'll likely end with me getting slapped with an accessory charge and going to prison, but that beats trying to deal with this on my own.

As soon as I reach the decision, I fly back over to the bed, dropping to my belly and reaching underneath for the burner phone.

It's gone.

The charger is still there, plugged snugly into the outlet hidden by the bed frame, but the phone is not attached. "No, _no,_ " I hiss, slipping my hand into the slit in the box-spring and feeling around, hoping desperately that the charger has just come loose, that the phone is still in its hiding place, but to no avail. Someone took it.

I push myself upright, look around for the laptop the Joker had been using, but a quick scan of the room reveals nothing. He might have just stuck it in a drawer somewhere, but even if he did, I can't help but think that Victor found it and discarded it. If my secret burner phone is gone, that means he was thorough about isolating me.

I rest my elbow on the mattress, run my hand through my hair, and whisper, "Fuck."

As I'm running through my extremely short list of options, hoping to uncover something I'm not seeing, a sudden thought strikes me.

" _There's something you should see,"_ he'd said. That combined with the Joker's absence… what if there'd been a conflict while I was sleeping? What if Victor had gotten the jump on him? What if the _thing_ he wants me to see is the Joker's lifeless body?

The thought horrifies me, and I'm angry that it does. I should _not_ care this much. The Joker lives a life of his own choosing, an incredibly risky one, one that has him rubbing elbows with dangerous people. I know there are a million ways he could reasonably get killed before _breakfast._

 _Just not at the hands of…_ _ **that**_ _._

I don't believe it, not really. The Joker's always three steps ahead of everyone—even on a bad day, he's not going to be taken down by some twisted slab of muscle. Even so, once the thought hits, I can't shake it.

 _Goddamnit,_ I think, slipping both hands into my hair and tightening my fingers, _I'm going to have to go down there._

I do not like that idea. I might have been playing fast and loose with my life when it comes to the Joker, but that's because he has clearly and repeatedly established that I have no say over that life when he's involved. That doesn't mean I want to end up the latest victim on Victor Zsasz's list.

 _So don't,_ I tell myself, tapping my fingertips thoughtfully against my lips. _It's your house, your turf. Do what you have to do to stay off that list._ After all, it's not as if I can stay up here. While it's tempting to leave the door locked and hide out in the bathroom, wait for something to change, I know that if enough time goes by and I don't make an appearance, Victor is going to come get me, and he's big enough that he's not going to let a locked door or two get in his way. Best to head down there on my own terms.

I brace my elbow against the mattress and rise—my legs aren't as shaky as I'd expect them to be. That's good. It means I might actually be able to manufacture some kind of miracle, despite the odds laid out against me.

Now that I've arrived at a decision, I'm not wasting any more time. I pat my pocket, ensuring that the knife the Joker let me keep is still in there, then get the handcuffs out of their box in my dresser, along with a black hoodie. I slip the hoodie on, placing the handcuffs in its front pocket. The knife in the bathroom cabinet is gone now, and I kick myself for not grabbing it up earlier—more blades would be more helpful.

 _Still. At least I've got the one._

I look around to see if there's anything I'm missing, but the room is empty, stripped of potential resources. I have nowhere to go but downstairs, down to face the monster in the house.

When I open the door, it's hesitantly, half-expecting Victor to be there waiting to pounce. He's not. The hall is empty, as is the staircase beyond.

It's not till I get downstairs, peeking carefully around the corner into the living room, that I find something.

There's a girl on my couch, and she's quite evidently dead.

I don't recognize her, and from my position in the doorway, I can't make out what killed her, but the pallor of her skin, the purple tinge to her mouth, the cloudy eyes are unmistakable. She's been posed to look like she's sitting naturally, shoulders against the back of the couch, elbow propped on the arm, muscles slack but upright nonetheless.

"I'm glad we have a bit of time to talk."

The voice comes from behind me; I jerk in surprise and whip around to see Victor, further down the hall, standing relaxed with his hands in his pockets.

 _Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope,_ I think, moving swiftly into the living room. I'd have thought I'd feel strange about drawing closer to a dead body, but it turns out if the alternative is letting Victor Zsasz loom behind me, then I'm more than willing to hang with a corpse in exchange for having room to run and a corner to put at my back. Additionally, I can't help it—I feel an automatic kinship with this girl, whoever she was, along with a sudden and rather unexpected sense of sadness and pity. Victor Zsasz obviously happened to her, he's currently happening to me, we have him in common.

I place myself carefully in the corner of the room nearest the doorway to the kitchen, and Victor follows me into the room, although aside from sparing me a glance, he doesn't acknowledge or approach me. Instead, he goes and sits near the girl—not directly next to her, but in the armchair nearby, and I'm grateful. It's bad enough seeing him sit so casually near his victim; if he'd positioned himself closer, or _touched_ her, I might have flown at him with my knife out right then. He's done enough.

"Sorry sight, isn't she?" he asks conversationally.

From this angle, I can see her better. She can't be any older than me, and I'd venture younger—her skin has the telltale wear that can come from smoking or booze or drug use, her bottle-blonde hair brittle and dry from one too many box-bleachings in a way that makes her seem older than she likely is. She's only wearing a black halter top and sparkling miniskirt despite the fact that the mornings and evenings have gotten chilly, and the story tells itself: she must be one of Gotham City's working girls, probably underage, like so many of them, and probably just saw Victor as nothing more than an average john. _Poor girl,_ I think; _poor girl._

"I try to tend to the most advanced cases first," Victor continues, looking at me. "Like her. You see? How long you suppose she's been dead?"

I speak, trying with arguable success to keep my voice from shaking from the potent blend of fear and anger coursing through me right now. "Going off of context clues? Sixteen, eighteen hours, right?"

He leans forward, wrists resting on his knees, staring at me with an intent, faintly disappointed expression on his face. The emptiness I saw earlier is gone without a trace, replaced by unnerving focus. "No," he says, shaking his head slightly to underscore the denial. "Try _years._ Longer than anyone knows."

 _Oh, right._ The Joker had mentioned this, Victor's pet delusion, though naturally he hadn't included any information that might actually _help_ me now. I stare at Victor, brows furrowed to telegraph that I have no idea what he's talking about, and he obliges me gladly, eyes practically shining at the opening I'm giving him to share his thoughts.

"Just like everyone else," he adds, matter-of-fact. "You, me… all of us, Emma. Dead. We start to rot from the moment we kick free from our poor mothers. And still, we're all fightin' to survive— _so hard,_ and for what?" He raises a hand and points to the dead girl. "For an existence like _hers?_ Shiverin' her ass off under a bridge, letting any bum with twenty bucks stick it in her so she can run off and buy enough junk to make her forget the past twenty-four hours? And people still call what she's doing _living_? It blows my goddamn mind."

He does look genuinely bewildered, eyes wide as he shakes his head. I feel my expression mirroring his, though for a vastly different reason. I'd like to think that my bullshit tolerance is higher than the average person's—I hang out with the _Joker_ , after all—but this is so far past mere _bullshit_ that it makes my head spin.

It's that faint sense of vertigo, combined with the fact that I've never been good at holding my tongue under stress, that prompts me to speak, quickly, a little breathy with fear and disbelief: "Wait, wait, let me see if I understand you. It's not that you think the world ended—it's that you think, like… the entirety of humanity is dead, and you… what, it's your job to make them _act_ like it?"

"Zombies will fight and struggle and _eat each other_ ," he says intently. "It's kinder to make them lie down, to accept their reality."

I'm already shaking my head. The words bubbling up aren't wise, exactly, but by now, I'm absolutely certain that the situation will escalate sooner or later, and I find I don't have a real preference as to exactly when, so I let them go: "What the hell is it with you Gotham guys?"

Victor angles his head to the side, looking faintly taken-aback (and more than faintly disappointed). I take his expression as a request for clarification, and oblige him gladly: "I honestly can't imagine that your consciences are somehow so delicate that you _have_ to convince yourself that the fucked-up shit you're doing is somehow for the greater good—even _worse_ , that you feel the need to explain your motivations to _me,_ couch them in terms that are, what, supposed to trick me into thinking you're performing a public service?"

He's staring, and at some point his gaze got more than a little heated, but I'm on a roll now, couldn't stop myself even if I wanted to, not with the dead girl's eyes staring lifelessly forward, right there in front of me. I stand motionless in the corner, hands in my pockets, and keep dishing it out: "I mean, if it's not the Joker trying to tell me he's operating on the basis of some kind of—fucking— _ideological purity_ , then it's _you,_ acting like you commit your fucking sick murders for the sake of someone other than yourself. _Grow up._ You two of you do what you do because it gives you a thrill, makes you feel powerful, and you're not doing jack _shit_ for anyone else—stop pretending you _are._ We fucking _hate_ the two of you."

Victor's nostrils flare, the only sign—apart from the intensity of his gaze—that he's angry. Angry, but trying not to be, clearly, trying to be above it all, to be _dead._ Pronouncing his words carefully, he says, "I am not the same as _him_."

I laugh at him, a low and unkind sound. "Yeah, sure, whatever."

"I am _not_." He loses the battle for calm, though it doesn't show in the way it had yesterday, when he was pretending to be dumber and angrier and had taken out his irritation on the table. Instead, it's in the light of his eyes and the way he holds his jaw, tight, like he's fighting not to let loose an angry torrent of words, the way the volume of his voice has ever-so-slightly increased. "You don't understand."

I scoff at him. It's inadvisable to make him angrier, trapped alone in the house with him and at such a disadvantage. I do it anyway. "Yeah, no _shit_ I don't understand. You're _alone_ in this, Victor, that's how delusions _work._ I mean, how long have you had this idea, huh? Cause the Joker told me you were just on the _regular_ side of homicidal before Gotham got doused in fear gas. You don't think it's telling that you got these ideas after breathing in a killer dose of unstable hallucinogen?"

"I was _awakened,_ " he says intently.

"Oh? I thought you were _dead_."

He surges to his feet, and reflexively, I press back into the corner. _Oh, right,_ I think tiredly, _psychology 101—easiest way to make someone suffering from delusions angry and irrational is to poke holes all through those delusions._

"You don't understand," he says again, and hitches his lip high to bare his teeth.

I stare at him, and finally, my anger has faded enough for me to realize that I'm going about this all wrong—that when the fight comes, it cannot be head-on, and poking and prodding at him and making my scorn evident is only putting me at a disadvantage. I let my tense shoulders slump a little, draw out that bone-tiredness I've started to feel and making sure it comes out in my voice (it's not hard), and with a sigh, I say, "I know. I'm sorry."

The apology knocks him off-balance. He doesn't know me like the Joker does, isn't familiar with my whiplash-inducing attempts to calm the situation by pretending to give the aggressor what he wants, and if he doesn't recognize it as a tactic in the first place, he can't see through it. He stares for a moment, then I see the anger start to fade, and after a minute it's tucked away again behind that thoughtful, placid mask.

Watching him remember he's "dead" gives me the creeps. I try to shake off the ugly feeling even as I realize, with a sudden pulse of urgency, that my time is _running out._ He's already had a chance to air his ideology out, to _show off_ (and I hate that I have occasion to know that career murderers like to do that)—how much longer before he decides we've done enough in the way of foreplay?

 _Not long enough,_ I think; not long enough for the Joker to return, not long enough for me to fashion a plan that might actually _work._ My palm itches, but I resist the urge to reach for the knife in my pocket. It'd be idiocy to show my hand too early, especially when I'm pretty sure I'm not holding any good cards.

 _Guess I'm winging it, then._

Victor is standing on the side of the room closest to the front door, leaving the path to the kitchen open. I nod at him, trying to mirror his thoughtful expression, and then, moving slowly (and with an attempt at nonchalance) in an effort to telegraph _I'm not running, I'm no danger,_ I walk out of the living room into the kitchen. He doesn't follow me, at least not while I can still see him, but I can feel his eyes on me the entire time.

The kitchen knives have been removed. I have no doubt that if I go rummaging through the drawers in search for something potentially helpful—a corkscrew, a meat tenderizer—the rattling will draw him to the room sooner than I want him drawn, so instead, spurred on by the sudden realization that my mouth and throat are both dry enough to choke me, I take a glass from the cabinet, fill it with water, and go to stand in front of the radiator while I drink it, looking through the window at the cornfields out back.

Past the miles of drying corn stalks, black clouds are piled up along the horizon—a storm coming, I think. Hopefully it'll get here soon, because right now, the sky is overcast with one ugly layer of cloud, dark and almost pink-tinged, normal in the city with all its colored lights and pollution, but here it means there's a wildfire burning somewhere, or something strange is about to happen with the weather. I can't help but wish I was facing front, so I'd have half a chance at hope, at hearing or sighting an approaching vehicle— the Joker, maybe, though a marshal or two could prove to be really helpful at this point.

I hear the sound of movement behind me, softer than I associate with Victor but it must be him, and I close my eyes for a moment. _And that's the last second you can afford to waste wishing someone will come and save you._

"There's one thing I don't get," he says quietly, and I glance over my shoulder just to confirm that he's where I think he is, standing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. He looks relaxed, calm, not an immediate threat to me, and if that changes, I'll hear it, so I turn my head again, looking again at the marginally more pleasant view out the window.

"Just one thing?" I ask, smiling wryly and letting him hear it in my voice. "You're better off than I am, then."

He ignores that. If nothing else, he's single-minded. "The Joker, he… he _matches_."

"Matches," I repeat, my flat tone making it evident that I'm not in the mood for guessing games.

"His outside. Matches his inside. He's nothing but a rotting corpse. Everyone can see it. He revolts… _everyone_." I smile unseen, because I can see where this is going, and true to my expectation, after a thoughtful pause, Victor adds, "Everyone but you."

I suppress the scornful laugh that threatens to burst out of me at that by taking another sip of water. After I deem myself under control again, I say, "You would be astonished how many times I've been quizzed about the exact nature of our relationship by different people. Police, lawyers, shrinks— _henchmen_ , once or twice, if you can believe that. I never really have any idea what to tell them."

"The truth?" Victor suggests, sounding almost kind, and this time I don't catch the sarcastic snort in time to stop it. He sounds a little stiffer as he continues: "What happened to make a pretty little zombie like you take up with a… _thing_ like him?"

I hate the sudden jealousy I feel gathering into a ball in my chest, especially since I know it's fucked-up—I get to call the Joker whatever the hell I like, but Victor starts mouthing off and I just want to turn and throw the glass in my hand at his stupid bald fucking head. _He hasn't earned that right. He has no idea what he's talking about. He doesn't mean it like I do; he can't._ This is not a helpful sentiment, though, so I push it aside without bothering to comment, at least for now, and I say, "Are you familiar with Stockholm syndrome, Victor?"

"It's not that." The immediate response has me half turning to look at him in surprise, and he gives me a sly little smile. "Spend enough time around shrinks…" he says, and lets the unfinished sentence hang there, explanation enough. I laugh, shake my head ruefully, and look back out the window. _Sure wish you'd've applied some of that insider knowledge to your own diagnosis, buddy_ , I think but don't dare to say—I think it's safe to say I prefer chatty, show-offy Victor to angry, irrational Victor any day of the week.

He, of course, has more to say. "Stockholm syndrome—in addition to being… _really_ rare—looks different than what's going on with you two."

"How's that?"

"The victim's devotion towards her captor is simple, single-minded. She defends him, she doesn't question him, supports him entirely—to an outsider looking in, it would appear that she adores him." His tone changes, sounding irritatingly knowing. "I don't get that from you."

"Is that because I tell him to fuck off when he needs to be told to fuck off?" I ask, straight-faced.

"It's because from the looks of it, the two of you might as well be standing on even ground. You're not looking _up_ to him, you're looking him in the _eye_ —"

"Figuratively speaking," I mutter, because who can forget the entire nine inches the Joker's got on me, but Victor doesn't even appear to hear me.

"—and what's more, he _allows_ it. It's bizarre."

"Really?" I ask, turning towards him and crossing my arms. "Or is it just that he's a guy who enjoys a good game and doesn't want to play it with the character of _defenseless victim_ every single time?" Victor cocks his head, interested, and I sigh, tilting my face towards the ceiling. I'd rather not get into this with _him_ , of all people, but the more time we spend talking, the longer it takes for him to slash me to pieces, so in the end, it seems a small price to pay. "Look, how many times do you figure the Joker's taken a hostage? How many of those hostages do you reckon did much more than cry and ask him to let them go? Now, granted, I did plenty of both of those things the first time we met, but I also _talked_ to him." I scrub my free hand over my face rapidly as I try not to get sucked in by my memories of that cold afternoon, an eternity ago. "Couldn't shut my big mouth. Go figure, right?"

Victor snorts in agreement. I guess all that muttering about me being a _mouthy bitch_ wasn't all big-dumb-show.

"The hostage thing kept happening, and eventually all I could figure is that he liked having someone around who entertained him," I tell him, and even though that's only part of the truth, I figure it's as much as he deserves. "Now it's routine."

Victor squints and sucks his teeth, shaking his head, and his shoulders slope down a bit as he takes a step into the room. "Routine… I don't know. Isn't that exhausting?"

His new stance, the fact that he's coming closer, the question—all of it sets off warning bells. I turn slowly back to the radiator as I hear him step nearer. "What do you mean?" I ask lightly.

My knife is in my left pocket, on the other side of him. I switch my grip on the glass to my right hand, taking a sip to disguise the motion, and carefully, keeping my arm hidden by my side, reach down for it.

"You're… what, the _Joker's_ clown? That's gotta be humiliating. Exhausting. Don't you want to rest?"

I stare adamantly ahead, trying to pretend like I can't hear him shuffling closer—but I can, we both know it, and I think he's enjoying it, because he's taking his time about it. I lift the glass again, noticing as I do that my hand is shaking. I pause, letting him get a good look, before I finish the rest of the water. Guy like him, so consumed with himself, will read it as fear.

It's not—at least, nowhere near entirely. It's just good, old-fashioned rage. The only one who's ever gotten away with toying with me, hunting me like this, has been the Joker, and he and I have our own understanding. The others, I killed like the pigs they were.

The knife is out of my pocket now, held out of his sight beside my thigh. Gently, I thumb the latch, disguising the click the blade makes as it locks in place by setting the glass down on the windowsill at the same time.

"Frankly," I say, bracing that hand on the windowsill, tapping my fingers there, anything to draw his attention from the other hand, "I think I'd rather be alive."

"Emma," he says, almost gently, drawing closer. "You never _were_."

His shuffle has quieted by the time he comes to a stop directly behind me, but I don't need to listen anymore, because I can feel that ugly, hulking presence at my back—it feels like watching the light from the crack under the door go dark. I feel something scrape lightly against my shoulder, stirring the curls that lie there.

I lift my arm at the elbow, just a little, and then I bring it down with force.

It hits him somewhere in the thigh, and the blade doesn't get far before I feel resistance— _bone_ , I think as he lets out a cry that sounds more like an angry animal's, _not good, not enough blood_ , but I'm already erupting into action, releasing the hilt, twisting around on the spot and jumping enough to grip the back of his head with both hands. He's preoccupied by the fresh wound, enough that his response is delayed—he brings the knife he was wielding up, cutting through my sleeve and hitting the underside of my forearm, but he doesn't jerk back enough at the same time, and I yank on him with everything I've got.

I might be easy enough for men as big as Victor or the Joker to haul around, but all my weight and force focused on one spot is a lot harder to fight against, especially when you're taken off-guard—it also doesn't help that men's center of gravity is set so ridiculously high, I'm sure—so Victor's head comes down like a rock, the space between his eyebrows connecting directly (and forcefully) with the edge of the radiator.

I land hard, too, my shoulder glancing off the radiator and forcing me to let go as the rest of me hits the floor, but unlike Victor, I haven't suffered a head injury, so I keep my wits about me (halfway, anyway—I have a metric fuckload of panic and adrenaline coursing through me, and neither of those is particularly good for rational thinking). His knees go to jelly and he falls to the floor with a soft groan that sounds like it's coming from someone a lot smaller and younger, and I roll to one knee, ignoring the predominant rippling ache signifying an ugly bruise to come on my shoulder and fumbling urgently at my pocket. _Quickly, quickly._

I get the handcuffs, drop them, scoop them up again, and after more fumbling, attach one of the cuffs to the radiator. Victor hasn't stopped groaning and is starting to blink rapidly, like he's trying to gather his wits. I seize his hand and cinch the other cuff around his wrist, tight.

The knife he dropped is by my foot. I kick it, it skitters a few inches, I wedge my bare heel against it and kick harder and with more purpose, and this time it glides all the way across the floor until it hits the edge, hidden slightly by the outcropping of cabinets.

My hand lands on the handle of the knife still wedged in Victor's leg as his eyes come to focus on me. Our eyes meet for half a second, then, as he starts to lunge, I yank the knife out of his thigh and throw myself backwards simultaneously.

He lets out an awful howl, and the cuff on the one hand keeps him from bodily following me, but his other hand snags my ankle, and immediately tightens so much so quickly that I wonder if he's trying to break it.

I'm still gripping the knife, and I twist a little to swipe back with it, catching his hand—I don't think it's deep, but it's enough to surprise and alarm him into letting go with a muffled curse. I don't waste time. I scramble away so quick across the kitchen floor that when I try to stop at the line of cabinets, I bump into them with my freshly bruised shoulder, prompting more pain like rot to blossom out from the injured spot.

I keep on ignoring it. I flip around, bracing my back against the cabinets, urgently checking to confirm that yes, Victor is sitting and bleeding right where I left him, locked to the radiator, and for the time being, he isn't going anywhere.

From opposite sides of the kitchen, in the sudden silence, we stare at one another.

* * *

 **A/N** \- eat _shit_ , Victor.

We're winding down- just a couple more chapters left, though as I mentioned elsewhere, the events of this story lead directly into the events of the fourth and final planned part of the series, so I guess.. keep that in mind.

next week: shit _really_ hits the fan.


	8. viii

**VIII**

 _Idiot,_ I think to myself without any real rancor as Victor's lip hitches in a pained snarl; _his femoral artery was two inches to the right. Why bother pulling the knife out when you could've just twisted it and redecorated the kitchen with his arterial spray?_ I'm not too hard on myself, though. In my panic, getting both blades away from him seemed like the important thing, and it isn't the worst impulse I've had under pressure.

I get my feet under me and slowly stand. Victor's breathing has leveled out from the pained gasps he was sucking in right after I stuck him, but it's still coming fast, and as he fights to get himself under control, he watches me- glares at me, really.

I turn, pushing up my sleeve as I go, then snatch a cloth from the countertop, and press it against the underside of my forearm, the spot that he got with the knife. It's not particularly deep, a scratch more than anything, and as I flex my fingers, making sure nothing crucial has been severed and that everything's under control, I'm grateful. I know he knows his way around a knife; I know the only reason I'm not badly hurt is that I managed to take him by surprise.

The awareness of what I just did hits me hard, all at once, and I brace my hand against the countertop to make up for the sudden weakness in my legs, laughing softly and a little breathlessly. _Zombie girl, 1, hulking serial killer, 0._

"Give me something for mine," Victor orders.

I glance over at him. "Nah," I say. "You can just sit there and bleed."

"And if I bleed out?"

I check him out. He's got a little spot where the skin split open in between his eyebrows, the skin around it already starting to turn blue, but overall, it doesn't look too bad. His leg, on the other hand, is bleeding generously, already soaking through his pants.

I'm unmoved. I wasn't lucky enough to hit an artery, and there's no way in hell I'm going back over there with a knife to try to finish the job (I got him off-guard once; I doubt it's going to happen again), but that doesn't mean I'm eager to help him tend to his injuries. If it wasn't personal before, he made it so by bringing that dead girl here, posing her on the couch like a mannequin in a display, like she was nothing more than a toy. I look him in the eye, and gravely, I say, "Then you bleed out."

He scoffs, and with some difficulty, movements made laborious by his injuries and the fact that he's a big man chained to a radiator two and a half feet tall, he twists around under his arms, manages to sit and stretch his legs out along the bloodied floor. Tilting his head back to get me in his sights, he says, "So, what now?"

It's a good question, one I don't really have an answer to. _It would have been better if I killed you,_ I think, keeping my eyes on him as I wrap the cloth around my arm, knotting it loosely then using my teeth to pull it tight. The fact that he's alive complicates things. It means I have to stand guard, keep my eyes on him so that he doesn't somehow get loose and come after me again. The radiator is bolted to the floor and the sturdy pipes run into the wall, so it would take some doing, but he's a big guy, and I wouldn't put it past him.

I sigh and pull myself up to sit on the counter. "Now—" I say, and pause to heave a long sigh, scratching idly at my collarbone. "Now, we wait."

"Oh, really? For what?" he demands, voice heavy-laden with sarcasm.

I give him the only answer I have. "For the Joker to come back."

He snorts. "Yeah? And what if I told you he's _not_ coming back?"

I smile at him, brittle. "Oh, Vic, you better hope he is, cause there's really no telling what I'll do if night falls and he's not under this roof."

Truth be told, though, it's not Victor who'll benefit from the Joker's return, and I think we both know it, if the derisive puff of air he releases in response to that is any indication. I can't help but think the Joker's sadistic tendencies would flare up heartily in response to a gift-wrapped Victor Zsasz, and in any case, he's a lot more creative than I am—if worst came to worst, I would probably resort to throwing really heavy shit at Victor's head till I was fairly assured he wouldn't fight back, then I'd dart in and saw through his throat.

The prospect is an ugly, frightening one, disposing of Victor on my own, and I don't really want anything to do with it. I want the Joker to come back, so that I can shift the responsibility of this horrible day onto his bony shoulders—doubtless it'll rest more comfortably there.

 _You could just leave_ , I think, glancing towards the window. _Sure, you can't risk the time looking for your keys, but you can always set off through the fields, towards town_ , but I don't like the idea. If Victor gets free, he can come after me—or head back to the city and kill more people. Better to remain here and make sure he stays neutered.

For now, at least. It's early yet. If more time passes and the Joker doesn't return—if I start to think he's not actually going to come back—then I might have a difficult decision to make.

 _But that's then_ , I think, taking a deep breath to settle my stomach and calm the fearful stutter of my heart. Right now, all we've got is time.

* * *

The morning progresses into afternoon, and the storm clouds seem to be stacking higher by the hour.

As time wears on, I start risking leaving the room for a minute or two at a time, expanding my knowledge of the situation I find myself in. Phone lines are cut, obviously, and there are no cell phones lying around anywhere- Victor might have one on him, but if he does, he isn't saying shit, and I'm not about to search him. The car they'd arrived in is gone, presumably taken by the Joker, so no escape on that front. If Victor brought any firearms into the house with him, I can't find them in the short chunks of time I feel I can risk with him out of my sight.

It feels like forever, but in the end, the Joker walks into the house again at half past six, right around the time the thunder that's been rumbling for a while gives way to an onslaught of rain. The sound of the front door opening has me tensing up immediately—I pointedly don't look at Victor, who I can feel is staring directly at me, and instead I slide off the countertop where I've been resting, fold my arms, and wait.

His approach is near-silent, enough that even though I'm watching for him, I'm still a little startled when he peeks around the door frame. He's only in view for a split second: when he spots me, he ducks immediately out of sight again, as though anticipating the need to dodge flying objects. Not a bad instinct, all things considered.

"Would you mind coming back in here, please," I say, and despite the polite words, my tone makes it anything but a request.

A pause, then he drifts into the kitchen, wearing a sheepish look on his face that's too average-guy to be genuine—and that isn't all. The face paint's back; he must have put it on in the morning, because it's already wearing through at the places where his face creases most often. The casual wear is gone—he's replaced it with a sharp suit, his trademark vivid purple, pristine pinstriped pants, shirt so pale lilac it looks almost white at first glance, lime green suspenders just visible at the edges of the jacket. Gloves but no greatcoat. He must have run into the city for the day.

 _How nice for him._

I'm realizing suddenly that rage has crept up on me. I've been white-knuckling it through the Victor problem, just trying to make it till the Joker got back, so I didn't realize it till his reappearance let me relax enough to feel it, and now, here it is, suddenly alive in that place between my throat and my chest. I take a long, deep breath through my nose and let it out softly through my mouth, hoping it'll soothe me, but if anything, the anger just burns hotter.

The Joker's gaze sweeps down to where Victor is camped out on the floor. "Victor," he greets him pleasantly, not bothering to acknowledge either the handcuffs or the bloodied leg.

"Joker," Victor replies, just as sarcastic in response.

The Joker's eyes cut back to me and, regarding me slyly—almost coyly—from beneath black-smeared lashes, he observes, " _You_ look like you wanna hurt me."

The anger, still alive and well, changes shape slightly. While he's absolutely right—I do very much want to hurt him—his pointing that out just serves to remind me that it wouldn't be a good decision. I don't bother to deny it, instead pulling my shoulders back and changing the subject. "And _you_ look like you're getting around pretty well."

His shoulder twitches carelessly in a shrug. "I'm a fast healer."

"Neat," I say, giving him a bright, sharp smile that doesn't reach my eyes. "That means you can take _him_ and get out."

He pulls back at that, raising his head high and looking at me out of the corner of his eye. Taken-aback, or playing at it, most likely, a guess that's confirmed after a second when he scrunches his upper lip away from his teeth in a pained-looking grimace and asks, "Did I, uh… did I _do_ something?"

I maintain the smile, though I feel something flare up dangerously. "Oh, no, nothing at all," I assure him. "It's just time for you to go." I have a general rule against passive-aggression, but by this point I know all too well that no blow is too low when it comes to him, and besides, it just feels so _good_ to be petty.

His eyes have gone sly, amused by the denial, but before he can say anything—if he even _wants_ to—I take a step back, towards the back way out of the kitchen. "Don't worry about all the blood and, y'know, the body. I'll take care of it once you're gone." _The way I always do,_ I don't say, instead crinkling my eyes at him, giving him a little wave, and saying, "So, uh… I'll see you when I see ya."

I feel a pulse of electric exhilaration as I turn my back on him and exit the room… or maybe it's just the anger still, twisting and flailing near the surface of my skin. I really expect him to follow me, because he's way too arrogant to just let me be so dismissive, and I kind of hope he will, because the second he tries to touch me I'm going to _explode_ —but he doesn't. I hear nothing as I head around the house via the dark back hallway, don't encounter him at the foot of the stairs despite preparing myself for the (strong) possibility. The implications of this aren't good: if he's not confronting me directly, that means he's taking his time to plot something worse.

 _Or not,_ I think as I head up the stairs. _Could be he'll just collect Victor and go, just to throw me off-balance. Or he could do any other number of things._ Unpredictability is his game, after all, and right now I feel too wrung out, pissed off, and disgusted with him to try and climb into his head.

Truth is, I want him to leave just as much as I want him to stay. I want him to stay so that I can hit him _really_ hard, but I'm starting to feel the exhaustion that always shows up sooner or later after time spent in his proximity, and a big part of me just doesn't want to deal with any of this. Whatever he decides, it's a win for me.

Upstairs, back in my room, the door closed: the storm clouds have cast a weird reddish light inside the room, the rain is falling hard and the wind has picked up and is whipping past the windows, but I can't manage to worry about the possibility that the storm could be dangerous. I note with disgust that I've got some of Victor's blood spatter on my pants, and twisting around, I see even more on the back of my thigh, which was in fairly close proximity to the stabbing. I've been too caught up to notice, but now that I have, I'm repulsed, and strip them off immediately, as well as my torn hoodie, leaving them in a heap on the floor and padding directly into the bathroom to tend to the stinging cut on my arm, another detail I've been ignoring while I was busy babysitting the killer in my kitchen.

In the bathroom: steam rises from the sink, creeping up the edge of the mirror as I strip off my assorted bandages. I'm faring well—just a couple of scrapes and bruises this time, the ring of purple and puncture marks on my neck, but nothing debilitating, no head injuries. I don't like it. It's been two days; I've never gotten off this light this far in. It makes me think something else is coming, something bad… but I'm starting to feel like I _want_ it to. It's the weight of anticipation from last night, only ten times heavier.

I tend to the wound Victor gave me, cleaning around the ugly blackened scabbing and wrapping fresh gauze around it. I hear the bedroom door open, and am aware it could be Victor, set free by the Joker as some twisted, shitty joke, but I'll deal with that if—or when—it happens.

I finish bandaging my arm, listening to the approaching footsteps just barely audible over the sound of the running water. When a faint shape forms in the fog behind my head, I turn off the tap, then reach up and wipe the mirror clean.

The Joker stands behind me, at a distance. When I meet his eyes, he slips his jacket off, hanging it up on the hook on the open bathroom door.

"That'll stretch out the collar," I say idly, but he doesn't seem to hear me, mouth pressed together and brow furrowed as he aligns it on the hook, smoothing down the cloth.

I change the subject. "Where's Victor?"

His eyes creep sideways at that—no matter how often I see them, I forget how unsettling they are when smeared with that pitch black paint—and then his lips part with a faint, wet pop, forming a wide, thoughtful oval for a second before he answers all at once. "Oh, he's taking a nap."

"A nap," I whisper, and laugh softly. Whatever that means, I'm glad to hear it.

The Joker tugs at the fingertips of the glove on his right hand from thumb to pinkie before pulling it loose and starting on the other. "You," he begins in that didactic tone he gets when he thinks it's time to fuck up my world with some hot new take, "are _angry_."

I turn, slowly, then lean back against the sink, bracing my hands against the edge and crossing one foot over the other, at the ankle. He's right, but I'm trying to ignore it. Anger doesn't help with him, never has, so ever since I felt that hot rush downstairs, I've been focusing single-mindedly on anything else, and I plan to continue on until I've gotten rid of him, but he's making it hard—just looking at him right now makes my fingers twitch, makes me feel a borderline irresistible compulsion to claw at his face until the paint gives way to a gush of blood.

"I thought I asked you to leave," I say instead.

" _Told_ ," he says.

"What?" My tone is too sharp, and I shut my eyes, just for a second, and make myself take a breath that's too short and not very calming at all.

"You _told_ me to leave," he says, eyeballing me speculatively. I blink at him, then shake my head, pairing it with a hand gesture that asks _so why aren't you gone?_ Instead of addressing the unspoken question, he unbuttons his right cuff and begins, neatly, to roll up his sleeve. "So what's eatin' you, Em?"

He hasn't come any closer, but I'm feeling increasingly crowded, and every time he speaks, I get the same sensation I might if he was physically poking me in the breastbone. Knowing that he wants a reaction makes me even more reluctant to give him one, but it's hard with this pressure building in my chest and with the only fully-formed thought in my head being _you fucker. You_ _**fucker**_.

"I already told you," I say, lying through my teeth. "Nothing at all."

"Now, it's not a _bad_ thing," he adds as if I hadn't said anything. His right sleeve is rolled up neatly to the elbow; he starts on the left. "It's, uh… it's the opposite, really. In fact—well, do you want to know a secret?"

I don't, but he doesn't really give me time to say so. Jutting his head forward as though there aren't several feet of space between us, taking on a low, confidential tone, he says, "That's what _today_ was about. See, I thought you could use a little _push_."

 _That_ does something—the admission makes me feel something like an electrical shock in my chest, though it's one borne of anger, not surprise. Of course I'd known he was toying with me, leaving me alone with Victor like that, but hearing him say it so matter-of-fact, not even bothering with his usual song-and-dance to obscure the truth, makes it somehow worse.

His sleeves are up now, exposing ashen, wiry forearms, and it strikes me that he looks like he's getting ready for a fight.

It seems unwise to say anything, but fortunately he doesn't seem to be waiting on my input. He takes a step closer, into the door frame, and then leans against it, crossing his arms tidily over his chest as he regards me with an expression that looks fondly condescending, the way he might regard a particularly stupid kitten. "See, the Emma _I_ know… she would've thrown a real _hissy fit_ the second I showed up at her door. Now, I appreciate that you've discovered… um, inner peace? Or whatever," he says, grimacing and waving his hand, like the concept is too weird for him to dwell on for long. "But, uh—this passive act has gotta go. I mean, c'mon, Em. You've always been such a _pistol_."

I know I shouldn't be crossing my arms in reaction to that, that the move is defensive at best and mirroring him at worst, but I can't help it, it's the only semblance of protection from him I can summon right now—otherwise, I feel too open, exposed to that mocking stare.

He doesn't seem to notice. Looking thoughtful, gaze fixed at some point over my right shoulder, he muses out loud: "Sure, it was good for a day or two, playing _nice._ " He gnaws on his bottom lip for a second and nods to himself, lost in thought, but inevitably, he picks up the thread, his eyes returning to mine. "In the end, though, this _zen_ act—" he grimaces, lifting a spiderlike hand and jerking it back and forth, indicating me—"it's… ah, it's _boring_."

The last word, delivered in a raspy sort of whisper, falls into a leaden silence. I can't say anything right away, because I feel like he just punched me, hard, in the gut. He doesn't seem to be in a hurry, though. He just curls his elbow, dropping his eyes so he can examine his fingernails while he waits for me to recover.

Which I do, eventually, though it's hard to force myself to speak much louder than a whisper. "Oh. …okay. So—wait, let me feed this back to you, just so I'm sure we're on the same page. You bailed on me—left me in the house with in the house with a dangerous serial killer, who _happens_ to have brought the corpse of the _last_ girl he killed along for the ride, left me with him _all day_ , twiddling your thumbs while god-knows-what happened here, just so you could, what? Shake things up? Because you were _bored_?"

The Joker lifts his hand, chewing at something at the edge of his ring finger, pulls back, spits it explosively out to the side, and then meets my eyes, something devilish gleaming fresh in his. "I didn't know about the corpse," he admits, and puts his hand over his heart. "That was my bad. Buuuuuut…" He narrows his eyes, appearing to think it over before nodding decisively. "Yeah, the rest sounds about right."

I try to keep myself under control, I really do. I try, a little desperately, to remind myself that we're playing a game, and just because he's cheating doesn't mean I should just quit and let him win. The reminder, though, doesn't get rid of the ugliness inside of me, the anger and disappointment that—I think—might kill me if I don't get them _out_ , and if that means _he_ wins, then…

Well. I've just been kidding myself, anyway, entertaining the idea that I had a shot at coming out on top. Haven't I?

I'm moving away from the sink, arms still folded, slowly at first, then quicker, closing the empty space separating us, and he doesn't move an inch, just watching me with faint interest as I advance. By the time I reach him, I've picked up some momentum and nearly crash into him, checking myself just in time to keep us from colliding even as I drop my left hand, and use the right to slap the ever-living _shit_ out of him—and it hurts, stings badly, as a matter of fact, but _God, it feels good._

The savage thrill is short-lived. The blow was enough to drive his face to the side, and he gives it a second, the line of his jaw shifting beneath his skin as he opens his mouth wide to stretch out his injured face, and then, he slaps me in retaliation, using the same hand and about the same amount of force.

Which is quite a lot, as it turns out—it sends me spinning away, and though I manage to catch my balance before I fall, I keep moving a few steps into the bathroom, anticipating his pursuit and trying to put some distance between us before the next blow.

Which doesn't come. As I clasp my jaw, trying hard to rub the sting out of it, I shoot a hunted look over my shoulder, and instead of the Joker filling my vision completely, preparing to crush me like a bug, I see him right where I left him, standing in the door frame two feet away, still working his jaw as he absently slips his suspenders off his shoulders, one at a time.

The fear disappears. My hand is throbbing and my face is hot and stinging, but I turn right around and take another swing at him. This blow lands, too, but it's glancing, bouncing without much force off his face just below his ear as he lunges at the last second and seizes me, filling his hand with the curls at the back of my head and pulling hard enough to make me yelp and reach reflexively up to try to make him let go, at which point he grabs my right wrist.

My left hand is still free, but his grip on my hair is so painful I can't help but try to pry his hand away instead of lashing out at him again, to no avail. He draws me close, flush against him from the stomach down, and, peering down at me, he says, "Listen."

I have no intention of doing that—I struggle instead, trying (failing) to twist my wrist out of his grasp and digging my nails into the hand tangled in my hair in an effort to make him let go. He shakes me hard, once, like a cat breaking a rodent's neck, and loud enough to hurt my ears, he barks, " _Listen!_ "

 _Like hell,_ I think, but my body isn't responding to me—pained and a little bit shocked, it freezes up. I try to focus on him, but I'm so mad I can't see straight; his face is blurred like I'm looking at it through an icy windowpane.

" _This_ is not my _faul_ t," he says emphatically, and I really hope the edges of his face are vibrating because some of my hair is in my eyes and the blood is rushing in my head, rather than because I'm losing my fucking mind. "Listen," he says again—this time, the word is a sibilant croon. "You've been _so_ careful. Trying _so_ hard to let everything just roll off of you. If you don't care, you're not gonna get hurt, right?"

"Let _go_ ," I snarl, trying and failing to pull away, but he keeps going.

" _Wrong_. You know—" he squints critically at some spot above my head, shakes his head and bares his teeth in disappointment, "that's the sort of thinking I'd expect from your average Gothamite… but not from _you_." He drops his eyes to mine again—I try to shrink away, but he's still holding me tight. "Bad things _will_ happen to you anyway, Emma, and in the meantime, all those, uh… feelings? All the things you're stuffing down deep, they are _fester-ing_."

He pauses, watching me intently for an agonizing span of seconds, then leans forward—I think at first he might kiss me, but instead, he puts his mouth next to my ear and says, softly, "All _I_ did… was lance the _boil_."

He lingers for a minute, warm breath gusting over my ear and sending chills shooting down the back of my neck and spine, then he leans back and looks down at me again to see how I've received this, dark eyes wet with some feigned emotion, or the effort of trying to make me believe him.

I realize his hands have loosened a little, enough that they're not hurting me anymore, though if I move to hit him again, I'm sure he could stop me before I did any damage. I look down at his hand around my wrist, then cautiously back up at him, and, experimentally, I reach up. He lets my arm slide up and out through his fingers, regarding me with curious benevolence, waiting to see what I'm going to do next.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure myself—but then I touch him, fingertips drifting along the side of his neck, and things suddenly seem a lot clearer. I pull him down to me.

He could pull back easily enough, but he doesn't seem to want to: he meets me gladly as I push up on tiptoe, his mouth colliding hard with mine.

Predictably, there's little to be found here but aggression, the press of teeth and tongues and the weight of his hand as it slides down my side to grasp painfully at my hip: he swallows my gasp of pain the moment it leaves me. He tastes—like paint again, but also… it takes me a second, but I place that other taste as breath spray, the kind they sell at pharmacies and gas stations. _He planned for this,_ I think, not particularly surprised, though I'd bet money it's less out of consideration for me and more just another performance, a way for him to let me know that he's pulling every last one of the strings here. Sadly, knowing that doesn't do much to quench the newly-freed lust. I push him, and he lets me, and we stumble out of the bathroom without breaking contact.

Indulging me further, he lets me twist us around, push him backwards into the wall—he's still a little hobbled from the leg, but to give him credit, he manages with more grace than _I_ would. There, I break away from the bruising force of the kiss and let go of him, then, in a lapse of judgment (though I have no idea whether it's _good_ or _bad_ ), I hit him, landing the right hook he'd thwarted earlier.

This time, he takes it full-on, and falls—or rather, collapses, slipping down the wall and landing hard on the floor like a pile of dried bones. I suspect he's faking. I don't really care, nor do I find it in myself to care that he'll probably want revenge, and I follow him down.

His back is braced against the wall, legs stretched out crookedly in front of him. "Augh," he groans, blinking hard and pressing the heel of his hand against his face, and as I straddle his hips, finding it in myself to avoid the injury on his thigh, he screws one eye closed, regards me with the other, and says, "Ya know, it costs extra if you wanna hit me."

"Shut up," I say breathlessly, and, since I can't exactly trust him not to run his mouth if he's got it free, I dive forward and kiss him again. He must not be hurt too badly, because he grasps me by the jaw and gets an arm around me to pull me tight against him, returning my affections roughly. His teeth scrape against my bottom lip, then bear down, and I taste blood—and so does he, if what I'm feeling between my legs is any indicator.

I grind down against him, more for me than him, and his mouth breaks away from mine; he tips his head back and growls. It's a very quiet sound, if feral, but I'm close and I can hear everything, and I'm a little startled by the hoarse laugh coming from somewhere low in my throat (I don't _feel_ like laughing—I feel scared, and excited and sad all at once). His eyes cut into mine again, making my heart jump and then beat harder than it already has been, but I'm beyond flight.

His hand creeps up and grasps my hair again, though this time I sense it's more because he wants to _touch_ than to _restrain_ —it doesn't hurt, other than prompting some tenderness from the _last_ time he was yanking on it, and I lean forward experimentally, to see if he'll let me. He does, and I rest my forehead on his shoulder, close my eyes, and pull his shirt loose from his pants.

My fingers suddenly feel clumsy, hesitant, and I pause for a moment— _does he even want this_ —before I feel something cold and narrow creeping up my hip, then a pull and a sting, and I realize he's sliced through my underwear with one of his omnipresent knives, nicking me in the process. I gasp a little, looking up at him, and he watches me back, something malevolent flickering there as he reaches around to repeat the process on the other side. He pulls the scrap of cloth free, and I'm naked from the waist down.

Which strikes me as patently unfair. Rather roughly, qualms gone, I make short work of his buttons—and, gentleman that he is, he lifts his hips obligingly enough for me to work his pants down, _enough_ , at least.

I reach down, taking him in hand and stroking him, and he's… got one hand splayed along my ribs, the other cupping my face, but the pressure from them is light, barely-there, which strikes me as… weird. I narrow my eyes, trying to figure where the forcefulness I've come to expect from him has gone.

In response to the unspoken question, he cocks an eyebrow at me. It's a fucking dare, and I realize—he's stopped on purpose, not pushing for this because he wants it to be _me_ , to be _indisputably_ my choice. It's no surprise, it's what he's wanted from the beginning, since this thing between us evolved from standard captor/hostage fun-and-games into something darker and more complicated.

The reminder makes me pause, and I look back at him, stricken for a second as all the reasons why I _shouldn't_ do this flood into my mind again: because it's dangerous in _so_ many ways, irresponsible, because he'll win the game, _because Victor's presumably still alive downstairs and could come barging in to murder us at any time_ —but if I'm being honest with myself, the tipping point was moments ago, not right now, and I've already lost my balance.

I lean forward, pressing my forehead against his tacky one almost in defiance, and sink down onto him all at once.

It hurts—it's been a while, I'm not warmed up, so of _course_ it hurts, but… it feels good, too, a relief, like scratching the blood out of an itch that's been bothering me for _years_ , and I groan, my eyes sliding shut involuntarily.

I'm only out of it for a second, but of course as soon as I open my eyes again I see him shooting me a sly, speculative look, and I snap "What?"—and then immediately bite my sore lip to hold in a gasp, instinctively gripping his shoulders as he pushes ever-so-slightly deeper into me.

"Are you, uh… are you sure you know how to do this?" he asks, and he's doing a credible attempt at playing it cool and smarmy, but his breathing is a little more irregular than usual: try as he might, there's no way he can hide it from me when we're joined like this, about as close as we can be.

The question irks me a little (if _anyone's_ sexual ability is in question here, it certainly isn't _mine_ ), and so I impulsively feed it right back to him— _"Are you sure you know how to do this?"_ —but heavier on the mockery. It makes him laugh in the quiet, unobtrusive way he does when he _really_ thinks something's funny, and I add "Shut up" for good measure, rolling my hips and enjoying the way his breath catches. He apparently decides turnabout's fair play and jerks me forward so he can bite down on my bare shoulder, making me gasp and buck against him.

Obligingly, he lets me set the pace. I can hear him laugh, low and rumbling; can feel him grinning as he works his way up my neck, and I know—he's so _pleased_ with himself, getting what he wants after all this time. I should pull back, should balk at the thought of surrendering, but his breath is hot in my ear and his free hand has slipped down, and he's touching me just right, and… well, I'm getting what _I_ want, too, and I think that counts for something.

Because it's him, and it's this, this thing that we've been working towards for a small eternity, it doesn't take long. Time is nebulous right now, but still, it feels like only a matter of seconds before the warmth tightens low in my belly, my thighs tense, my spine curves, and I tip my head back, closing my eyes as the wave slams into me.

He is… astonishingly steady, and keeps me going through the aftershocks for quite some time until he comes in turn, going rigid beneath me, then relaxing all at once, humming softly as he exhales slow. By now, I'm little more than a shaky mess, only semi-upright because I've got his shoulder to lean against as I try to pull myself together enough to move, or at least _think_ clearly. It takes me another minute before I can push away and climb unsteadily off of him (he doesn't move to stop me, thank God, and I can't make myself meet his eye to see what he's thinking), and even then, I have to settle right back down beside him, sitting with my back against the wall while I wait for my legs to stop feeling like they'll give out the second I try to put my weight on them.

After a second, he reaches down, adjusting himself and then neatly refastening his pants. The motion draws my eye, which then catches on a dark spot that's formed on the purple fabric covering his thigh: he's bleeding; our activities just now probably popped a stitch or two.

I'm very sore between the legs and my face is throbbing where he hit me, my scalp is tender from the incessant hair-pulling and I'm still trying to think past the haze of the afterglow, so all I can seem to think is _good, maybe it'll get infected and he'll die._ Not the most sensible thought, or the most mature, but it seems like a tidy solution to my current predicament.

Maybe it's _because_ of the afterglow, but I don't feel the press of panic and dread at the edges of my mind, the way I'd expect to after fucking up so spectacularly. Instead, creeping in slowly and soothingly is a powerful sense of relief. I'd done it, the thing looming up on the horizon for so long, the thing I couldn't decide whether to dread or anticipate, and… I'm fine. I didn't drop dead; my life hasn't fallen to pieces.

Perversely, _this_ is what irks me. It seems unfair, after the trouble and pain of this whole ordeal, after what I've just done and who I did it with, that there's so little fanfare, inside and out. I resent the calm (the _satisfaction_ , even). I should be more shaken. I should regret what I just did.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him shift and turn his head and look over at me. I'm busy enough trying to sort out my complicated feelings and have very little time for his, so, staring straight ahead, I give the sudden rush of irritation and spite an outlet and tell him, "I hate you."

In the stillness of the room, the words seem to linger like a physical thing. He gives them time for once, letting them disintegrate fully in front of us before opening his mouth and responding with almost painful care: "No, you don't."

I turn my head to look at him. The faint heavy-liddedness to his eyes is about the only mark of what we've just done; the wicked gleam there is alive and well, and his lips are slightly pursed, probably to disguise a smirk, although without much success, which tells me he didn't care much to hide it to begin with. He's _thrilled_ about this, like I always knew he would be.

I don't tell him whether he's right or wrong. I just rise to my feet and, using herculean self-restraint to avoid making a target out of his busted leg, I step over him, grab some new clothing from a dresser drawer, and lock myself in the bathroom.

* * *

 **A/N** \- ahhhhhhhhahahahahaha get _wrecked_


	9. ix

**IX**

As curiously calm as I feel about the new development, it seems my body doesn't agree. The second I turn the lock, my mouth starts watering, and I barely make it to my knees in front of the toilet, pulling my hair back as I move, before I vomit up the contents of my stomach in a few quiet, violent heaves.

 _God,_ I think after it's over, as I spit out the remaining bile gathered in thick cords at the back of my throat, _how revolting_.

I give it a few moments, waiting for more, or for some wave of crisis to belatedly hit me, but sickness appears to be a one-off—I'm back to the unflappable calm in no time, and with a thoughtful "hmm," I wipe my watering eyes, stand, flush the toilet, and go to the sink to rinse out my mouth, to drink some water to soothe my irritated throat.

They call it a hooker's shower, cleaning up with just wet wipes or a damp towel when a more thorough bath isn't available. My shower is right next to me, but the last thing I want to do is shed my remaining clothes and hop in. The Joker could decide he wanted to join me, or, more unpleasantly, he could decide he's exhausted his uses for me and could set Victor loose to get his revenge. Either way, best to stay clothed and on guard, so I make do with a washcloth and soap.

It doesn't take long for the little sense of pique to subside entirely, giving way to that wave of anesthetizing relief. I'm still uncomfortable that I don't feel as upset as I should, but even as I give in and oblige my more fretful side by going over all the reasons that fucking the Joker was the _worst choice I could ever have possibly made,_ I can't scrounge up enough concern to make a dent in the calm.

Pregnancy is not a concern—before I even moved up here, I'd gotten an IUD, not planning anything in particular, but definitely faintly conscious that it was something better to have than not. _Thank you, past me,_ I think dutifully as I toss the damp cloth into a hamper and slip on a fresh pair of underwear.

Disease… well, that's a little trickier, but not by much. Around the first time I'd been exposed to the Joker, Jim Gordon had mentioned—casually, but in clearer terms than the hospital that did my bloodwork or the other police—that he'd tested clean of disease when he'd initially been admitted to Arkham Asylum, and going by my medical results, that hadn't changed. It's possible he could have picked up any number of things in the span of time between then and now, but the thought doesn't perturb me, because if he managed to stay healthy for thirty or so years before I met him, there's no reason he couldn't manage it in the interim. Besides, I've already been exposed to his saliva, his blood—might as well go for broke.

Frankly, I'm most worried about the chemicals that go hand in hand with sex fucking up my brain. I don't need _anything_ bonding me more tightly to him than I already am.

A distant crash interrupts my train of thought, and I frown at my reflection for a moment, trying to place it ( _thunder? Did lightning hit something nearby?_ ) before I hear footsteps loud outside my door, then receding, and the realization hits me late. _Victor's free._

And I have no intentions of being the one to deal with him, either. I move in near-silence to the locked door, put my ear to it, and listen hard.

There's some distant thumping, followed quickly by some incoherent masculine shouting—Victor's, I'm sure; the Joker always sounds more harsh and reptilian in the rare event that he gets loud. The yelling is interrupted by gunfire, two loud cracks, and my breath freezes in my throat for just a second before I remember that Victor didn't have a gun last time I checked, and the Joker, I believe, has access to _several._

In the immediate aftermath of the shots comes near-silence, punctuated just by some faint thudding, then silence for a minute or so before I hear approaching footsteps, growing louder as they reach the top of the stairs and enter the bedroom, by which point I can hear the slight limp in them.

The loud rapping right next to my head shouldn't make me jump, given that I've just listened to him approach. It does anyway.

"Emma," the Joker says, quick and impatient; "out. We gotta move."

 _Unlikely._ "What just happened?"

His exasperated sigh comes through the door loud and clear; _how dare she make this inconvenient for me_. "Vicky got tired of waiting and got loose. He ran out into the field. Uh. Your radiator's broken, by the way."

 _And that's exactly why I didn't leave him unguarded all day,_ I don't say. "Okay, and?"

" _And_ it's time to go."

"So go."

There's a short silence, and then another sigh. "Well," he says, sounding casual, and I feel a faint pressure on the door—he's leaning back against it, I think—"I'm not going to _make_ you come with me, of course." _No,_ I think, _of course not, not like there's a precedent for that or anything_. "But you know—" here his voice drops down low and quiet—"I _saw_ the way he looked at you. Hell, it gave _me_ the heebie-jeebies. Ya know, if I had to bet on it, I'd say Vicky has no plans of _staying_ gone. He'll be back. Probably after dark. Me? I'm _leaving_. If you want to stay… well, that's your business, I guess."

In the ensuing silence, I consider his words. It's obvious he _wants_ me to come with him, and I'm not sure what he's playing at, giving me a choice (or pretending to, at least)—we both know damn well he could break down this flimsy door and drag me out by the hair, if he wants to.

I believe him about Victor, and frankly, as much as I'd like to bare my teeth and say _so? I took him down once, I'll do it again_ , I know it isn't true. Even if I wasn't feeling wiped out from the events of the past few days… well, I was only able to get the best of him to begin with because I had the element of surprise on my side, because he was too arrogant to think someone so small and powerless could get the better of him. Maybe if he was as dumb as he'd initially presented himself, he'd fall for the same tricks twice, but after spending the day with him, I no longer believe it. Batshit crazy? Sure. Stupid? Not so much.

"Emma?" the Joker says after giving me about twenty seconds to think it over. "Clock's ticking."

I close my eyes and press my forehead against the door. I should send him on his way, then find a way to get out of here on my own. Obviously, that would be the smart thing to do. He's not my fucking boyfriend—I'm not safe with him and never will be, so it's bullshit to say I'd be leaving with him to _escape_ danger and we both know it.

Here it is: as much as resolving to stop fighting myself and my impulses has helped stop me from wanting to just be dead already quite as much, it opened the door wide for my fixation, letting it settle in and develop. The unfortunate reality, as a result, is that I'm in no state emotionally to turn down this invitation to accompany him, not a second time, not _now_.

Another result, incidentally, is that I feel like I have less control over myself, acting more on impulse and with less prolonged forethought. Maybe it's all an illusion, crafted by my subconscious so that I won't feel the weight of my bad decisions as much. Maybe it's all cowardice. Whatever the reason, my hand drifts towards the lock even before I've reached a conscious decision, flipping it clear.

 _Be real,_ I tell myself in resignation as I slowly open the door. _It wasn't_ _ **not**_ _going to happen this way._

I was right, the Joker was leaning back against the door, waiting for me, and now he's turning to allow the door to swing open. For a second, we regard one another in silence, assessing.

For my part, I'm trying to decipher the look on his face. There's nothing so human as softness there, or warmth or affection, but neither is there the triumph or smugness I expect to find, which is… odd, because he's a shitty winner, and I would expect him to jump at the chance to rub this fresh surrender in my face. Instead, he looks uncharacteristically preoccupied, tongue digging at the corner of his mouth as he looks me over. I communicate a question— _regretting the invitation already?_ —with a silent, pugnacious motion of my chin. His eyebrows twitch, and he steps aside with a gesture, waving me out through the door.

I move out past him into the room, wondering if I should even bother trying to pack anything. The feeling that something—something aside from the obvious—is terribly, terribly wrong punches me in the gut approximately a split second before his arm circles my neck from behind, and suddenly I can't breathe.

I react immediately, reaching up and trying to yank his arm away with both hands, but it's too late, he's got me at a disadvantage, folded tight against me from front-to-back. I wasn't prepared for this, and he's so much stronger than I am. I can't budge him.

I reach blindly up behind me, scrabbling for his face, his eyes, anything I can latch onto and claw and use to make him recoil from me, but each time my fingertips slide over the tacky surface of his skin, he ducks out of reach and I'm left with nothing but empty air and I can't _breathe_ —

He's shushing me, making soft and repetitive sibilant sounds in my ear. I recall, through the increasing dizziness, that he has a vulnerable spot, and I swat backwards, desperately trying to make contact with the injured leg, and I actually touch it—I think—for a second—but his arm around my neck gets tighter ( _how?_ ) and twists around, swinging me along with him—

And the pressure increases. I feel cold; am faintly aware that one of my arms is twisted hard behind my back, and the black is encroaching on my vision. I make one last pathetic, futile gasp for air

and it all goes dark

 _and I am floating_

And…

Looking at the ceiling. My ceiling, the old wood slats above my bed, and the softness underneath me feels familiar but I'm dizzy, and it's hard to think or feel anything past the sense of panic.

I hear a familiar voice, and manage to turn my head towards it, and see him, standing in the middle of the room, phone to his ear. His words sound far too quiet and linear and I can't make much sense of them right now: "1008 Hartmoth Lane. The girl there, the one under witness protection. She's been attacked. In pretty bad shape, too. Better send her marshals out." He pauses, then adds, "Oh, and… there's a dead woman in the living room, so… _chop-chop_."

He takes the phone away from his ear, punches a button on it, and through the dizzy haze I recognize it as my burner phone, the one I'd been so careful to keep charged and hidden in case of an emergency. _You bastard,_ I think.

It's a good thought. It means I'm relocating my lost senses. I try to sit up, but can't manage it—I'm still dizzy, off-balance; my arms… are tied in front of me. I test the knots, but there's no give.

A glance at the Joker—he's looking at me, mouth tight and thoughtful. " _You_ ," he says, putting the phone in his pocket and creeping closer, "stay _still_."

I don't feel entirely capable of speaking yet, but I can glare, and I do, turning as much heat as I can manage on him. Predictably, this just makes him chuckle. "Oh, you'll thank me soon," he assures me, and sits on the bed next to my feet.

I aim a kick at him, but it's sloppy, he catches my ankle with no effort, and then grasps the other before I can do much more than think about moving it as well. " _Liss-sten_ ," he says, baring his teeth as he presses my legs down into the mattress. "Your part in this is _done_. Take a load off; relax."

My voice, once I find it, comes out a little hoarse but none the worse for wear: "Fuck off."

His mouth twitches, but the smile never manifests. "That's the plan," he says, and rises, loping across the room to take his jacket from its hook and sliding it on. "If I know Victor," he says, matter-of-fact as he pulls his hair free of the collar, checking his reflection, "and—well, face it, he's not _that_ complicated—he hasn't gone far." He glances sideways at me and adds, "You see, he doesn't get _paid_ if he just wanders off without _doing_ anything."

"Paid?" I ask, and at my second attempt, I'm able to sit up at the waist. My head starts throbbing at the motion, and that's the _least_ annoying thing about right now.

The Joker doesn't elaborate. Instead, he comes back over to me, moving fast now, and bends over to pick something up from the floor. As he straightens, he grabs my ankle again and _yanks_ , dragging me down towards the footboard (and knocking me again onto my back). When I recover from the surprise, I lean up to see that the thing he got from the floor is a skein of thin nylon rope, which he is using to tie my foot to the bed.

I try jerking that foot out of his hands, but his grip is too strong, so I just kick at him with the other. His only response is a mild "Behave" as he sinks onto the bed, leaning sideways to put the weight of his torso onto my shins and effectively pinning them down. So I sit up and start beating at his back with my tied hands, growling "Don't you _dare_!"

"Emma," he says, starting to sound irritated, "if you don't _knock it off_ , I'll _hogtie_ you."

I pause. I don't want that. I stop hitting him, but I'm not ready to give up entirely. "Just… _why_? You _know_ I'm not a threat to—"

"If you do _not_ stop _complaining_ , I'll tape your mouth shut, too," he says without bothering to look at me. Angrily, I throw myself back against the mattress—it's childish, but I need _some_ outlet. The Joker is complaining to himself, an annoyed mutter: "Try to do something _nice_ for a change…"

He releases the foot now bound to the bed and grabs the other, then pauses and glances back at me, eyes resting on mine briefly before dropping to my still-bare thighs. Instinctively, I move to clench them together, but he's quick, and tugs on my ankle, parting my legs so he can reach in-between them—and I gasp at the sharp pain as he rakes his fingernails down my left inner thigh. He drew blood, I can tell just by the feel of it, and I'm too startled to even cry out, much less figure how I feel about it.

He inspects the marks, four streaks of red vivid against white skin, nods, releases my foot, and stands. " _Now_ ," he says brightly, glancing over his shoulder, then again at me as he starts backing towards the door. " _I'm_ going to take care of Victor, and as for you—the police are on the way." He pauses just outside of the doorway, and lifts his hands, making a frame with his index fingers and thumbs and squinting one-eyed at me through it. "All you gotta do is sit there and look pretty."

Normally I try to avoid looking at him like he's a crazy person, because I don't want to trigger something ugly, but right now, I can't help it. _What? What the_ _ **fuck**_ _is he talking about_?

He clicks his tongue, shoots me a grin, then sidesteps and vanishes from my view.

It takes a minute for my brain to start working—being so overstimulated _and_ choked out in such a short span, only to wake up to find that _everything_ has changed without my knowledge, has kind of put my mind on the fritz. The first thing I realize (and it's a doozy) is that the Joker is giving me an out. When the police arrive, instead of seeing a free and (largely) uninjured accomplice, they'll find me tied to the bed, a fresh bruise on my face, bitten up with scratches on my legs, and if I tell them the right story, submit to the right examination…

 _Out of the question_.

I could justify it, if I wanted to. What's one more entry on the list of horrible shit he's done to me in the end, regardless of if it's true or not?

Maybe it's just contrariness—he apparently wants me to do it, so I won't. Maybe it's selfishness, or cowardice, because I don't want to lie repeatedly about such an ugly thing, to confine myself to an unending act for the cops, the court, the press. Maybe I just want to hold onto whatever shreds of privacy I have left, to dissect this new development in this _thing_ between us on my own, without having to shape it into a story for other people's judgment and speculation.

Whatever the reason, whatever else he's done, he didn't rape me. I'm _not_ going to say he did, and if that's the thing that finally lands me in prison… well, I had a good run. And anyway, maybe I'll be safer in prison than I am free, making shitty decisions and no longer fighting his involvement in my life.

There's a less complicated and more practical reason I don't want to just wait here all trussed up, trusting that everything will be okay, and that's that it's entirely possible that Victor will show up here again, whether because he somehow got the better of the Joker or because the Joker wasn't able to find him to "take care" of him to begin with, and I don't want to be a sitting duck if that happens. I figure finding me like I am right now would be on par with Christmas for a scumbag like Vicky Zsasz, and I'm not going to just blindly trust the Joker (or the police, for that matter) to save me from that fate.

My decision made, I sit up again. After quickly checking the inside of my leg (the scratches are bleeding, but not much—bright red and damp but not oozing past the lines of injury; I can deal with it), I try to figure out how to get out of this. The knots are tight, I'm not going to slip out of them, but it doesn't take me long before I light on an idea.

The Joker—or Victor—or both—might have gone through my room and largely disarmed me, but I think I know where one blade is, and thankfully, it's in easy reach: in the pocket of the bloodied pants I'd discarded at the foot of the bed.

I know the Joker probably left the one foot free to support the narrative he's posing, _easy access_ , but it just gives me a decent amount of mobility and will hopefully come back to bite him. I shimmy along till I get my free leg draped over the footboard, foot on the ground. Awkwardly, trying to maneuver around the tied foot and my limited balance courtesy of my tied hands, I lean and reach out, making several swipes for the pile of cloth before finally snagging it. I can tell from the weight as I lift it that the knife is still in the pocket where I left it.

 _Maybe the Joker should open his mind to the fact that he's not the one who keeps blades secreted in many places,_ I think smugly as I fish the knife out and, careful not to cut myself, spring the blade open.

It's not as sharp as I'd like. It takes me a good minute of sawing, complete with a few nicks to the heel of my hand and my wrist, before I can cut through enough of the rope binding my wrists to free them. The foot is easier, and before long I'm left with a pile of black nylon and the full use of my limbs.

I push back the sense of déjà vu and clamber up from the bed. My first priority is to dress myself properly and, ignoring the discarded pants on the floor, still wanting nothing to do with Victor's blood, I move to the dresser and grab the first pair I can find, then yank them on, covering up my bare legs and the incriminating marks with them.

Most immediate need tended to, I pause, running through my options. I feel like I should follow the Joker, out into the rain, to try and make sure Victor's out of commission.

 _Except_.

I sigh, resting my elbow on the surface of the dresser, leaning into the palm of my hand and closing my eyes. My head's still pulsing, dizzying me a little, and my legs feel weaker than I think they should, and I feel like it's past time to admit to myself that I don't have the energy to pursue this any further. The Joker himself called the cops and went out to hunt Victor down, and while it would make me sleep easier to go after them and see Victor totaled with my own eyes, I'm not sure how wise that would be.

 _Maybe,_ I think hesitantly, opening my eyes again, _maybe I should just tap out and let him handle this one._ Since his original offer turned out to be a lie, and now that I'm removed from the heady temptation of his presence—with a brand new headache thanks to his bullshit—it's easier to see the benefit of being separated from him again, at least for a while. While it's true I refuse to go along fully with his offered protections, now that I've managed to free myself and don't have to deal with cops barging in and finding me looking violated and abused, perhaps it wouldn't be the worst thing to just… wait for help.

 _Wouldn't that be nice. Just for once_.

I'm aware that since I've rejected the setup offered by the Joker, this is kind of a frying pan/fire decision. The police, when they arrive and see that I'm unrestrained and not really the worse for wear, will almost certainly arrest me, if not now, then later, when they do their homework and realize this is the third strike, that I'm supposed to be in witness protection, and that if the Joker found me again it must be because I _wanted_ him to. (The fact that this isn't true probably won't deter them.) A good lawyer could probably get me off scot free, but I'm not so sure I deserve it, and anyway, how could I afford even halfway decent representation on a waitress's salary?

On the other hand, going out to witness (or participate in) Victor's beatdown, while it might soothe my stirred-up feelings and give me a bit more closure, puts me at a higher risk of immediate physical injury or death. Provided I escape either of those outcomes, the police will still be there at the end, and I'll likely still end up arrested—that is, unless the Joker decides to whisk me away with him, which seems unlikely now, all things considered. Anyway, it's certainly not an option that'll _reduce_ my likelihood of being arrested in the end.

 _Thinking about it that way, it's not really much of a choice at all_ , I think, starting towards the stairs, _and anyway, this way, I've got Jim Gordon._ Obviously, I'm not counting on him to wave a magic wand and dispel all my troubles—I'm pretty sure he's already stretched himself to his limits just getting me in this witness protection program—but he is a source of comfort in the middle of all the ugliness, and these days, comfort is rare, a fact which accounts for the sudden yearning I feel at the thought of him. I'm aware that things could turn ugly quick under the circumstances if he decides I'm the enemy, but even so… it'd take a lot to make me forget what he's done for me.

Really, I just want to see him again.

I move through the house in silence, locking doors and windows even as I open up the blinds and curtains so I can see if trouble is coming, or help. After I'm done, I sit down in the living room with the dead girl.

"If nothing else," I say softly to her, "at least you'll be put to rest." Sitting four feet across from her, I'm neither as upset nor repelled by her as I might expect—just tired, and a little sad, and relieved that this horrorshow will be over soon.

Even if (or more accurately, _when_ ) another one takes its place.

Through the rain, distantly, I hear a sound. I think for a little while it's the wind picking up, but eventually I realize it's sirens, growing closer and more urgent by the moment. Eventually, they reach a fever pitch, and when red and blue lights start flashing through the window, lighting up the living room, I know it's time. I go to the front door, and after taking a moment to look around the house—I doubt I'll be returning soon, if ever—I unlock and open the door, and head outside with my hands in the air.

 **End**

* * *

 **A/N** \- I don't think I've ever hated posting a final chapter for any story as much as this one. It feels so... abrupt, which is intentional, because part four will be picking up right where we left off with no time gap, but that just means there's none of the usual sense of closure.

I'm working to amend it. I'm writing the draft as we speak- the plot is largely figured out, but there are a lot of little details that need to be written so I can post chapters without changing things mid-project and leaving everyone confused. It's my top priority, and I hope to be able to share it with you before long!

Thanks so much to everyone who read and enjoyed this, both newcomers and those of you who've been cheering me on from the start. See you again soon.


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